Greatness Beyond Power
by EiriTheBear
Summary: WIP AU SLASH. Harry walks a different way to his destiny in defeating the Dark Lord, through an unorthodox magic school, finding friends, loyalty, and love along the way. Harry/OC. Rewritten.
1. Ombra Castle

**Disclaimer: **All characters, events, objects, concepts, creatures and places that have appeared in J.K. Rowling's work and have been said and discussed in her interviews and biographies are NOT mine, that is, I am using them only to paint an alternate picture (a fanfiction) of what I think should be, but wasn't (due to canon). They belong to the lady herself, and Warner Bros. and her publishers. Everything else that is not disclaimed after this disclaimer is mine own machinations. (So I might disclaim other things in the future)

**Chapter 1:** Ombra Castle

Calvin pulled down his hood as he boarded the steel, ornately decorated carriage, pulled by two young Thestrals. Their eyes blinked at him as he disappeared, the docile creatures aware that the boy could see them.

He sat farthest from the other occupants, his face planting a firm, stoic mask as he surveyed them discreetly.

Brown, bottle eyes stared back at him with uncertain warmth. The person these eyes belonged to was fidgeting in his seat, excited, no doubt, about going to Ombra school. Calvin's expression cooled a few degrees when the boy tried to smile at him. The boy's smile faltered, and he looked towards someone else.

The girl next to him wore a distantly bored expression, her mouth a tiny curl away from being a pout. She wore fine, embroidered robes, which suited her angelic face and golden hair. She stared outside and did not bother with anyone. Calvin thought this girl came from a wealthy family, if not a well-off, pureblooded one. He found himself thinking of ways to use this girl to his advantage.

Right across the blonde girl, sitting away from Calvin, was a girl with dark eyes, preoccupied with a book. Calvin studied her. He made out the words 'History of Light Alliances' embossed on the cover. She didn't seem to mind that her long, ebony hair fell on parts of the pages. Her skin was too pale to be considered healthy, yet she carried a soft glow around her that made her look more alive than the other two. Calvin forced himself not to start when it thrummed, as if the thin veil knew someone was thinking about it. _Magic, _he thought to himself, half-impressed, half-wary.

And the carriage's last occupant, a thin, wiry boy, with equally wiry, unkempt hair and wire glasses, sat with an anxious expression, staring at his hands. He was uninteresting, despite his small size, small enough that he seemed to be buried deeply in his robes. The boy refused to meet anyone's eyes with his own green ones. Calvin paid him no mind after that.

The carriage lurched, startling everyone riding it, and made forward at a steady pace.

Calvin watched as Splinter Portal disappeared, the forest crawling like closing curtains around them. Soon, they were surrounded by the wild trees and plants. Light filtered gloriously through canopies of leaves, lighting the carriage's path, and unfamiliar sounds filled the air, sounds that piqued Calvin's curiosity, along with everyone else's. The forest was dense, and Calvin could see the air was saturated with moisture and magic.

He had no idea how far the trees extended, if they even covered a vast area. He only knew how big this part of South England was, and did not know how far the mist that befuddled the Muggles covered the bogs and moors. He knew all of that wouldn't matter, though, because Ombra forest was an enchanted one, hidden in a mystical rift in space found on one of the more secluded tors in Dartmoor. They would be nowhere on the world, but rather in between the crevices of its existence. The magic surrounding OmbraValley was strong and old, and so far no one has learned of its secrets. One entrance to it was Splinter Portal, a sacred place connecting the real world to the rift, a shrine woven with vines and wood.

After a while, Calvin tensed, as if a thick net ensnared him, and he knew why; the carriage they were on drew past thick layers of wards and rune protection. The others reacted differently to the onslaught of magic. The petulant girl sneezed repeatedly, the boy next to him had glazed, dreamy eyes, and the black-haired girl scratched her elbow. Calvin felt the magic like a steady drumming to his temples, giving him a headache. Somehow, the boy between him and the girl didn't react to the magic, and Calvin surmised that he must not be powerful enough.

Calvin looked out once again. The light danced on many kinds of flowers and leaves, some looking glassy and brittle, and others rough and spiky. Woods of different textures, thicknesses and heights towered over the rough path, and critters flew and skittered around, looking for new places to hide in. The creatures of the bog came from all over the world, all coalescing and harmonizing like a world untouched by human intervention. OmbraValley was the world condensed, making Ombra School of Magickery a premier place for magical education.

Calvin couldn't believe it himself. Ombra was a thing of myth told only in ancient history books. The school chose to share its location only with individuals whom it thought would affect the world, to walkers of unbridled destiny. It is said to be established by Merlin himself, who tore into time and space to stop himself from perishing. Unable to return to the real world, he sacrificed his magic to create the landscape and the castle, in the hopes that it would mold wizards which would one day direct the course of magical history.

Calvin knew the Castle would be a living, breathing thing, conscious and aware like a human, and he wondered briefly how the castle selected its professors and stewards. He didn't have time to imagine, because soon enough the Castle's tip loomed ahead, getting closer as the thestrals pulled them.

It looked very old, Calvin thought in interest, like a relic borne of medieval times, much older than what HogwartsCastle looked. However, it sang with magic so deep and impalpable that it reached out to them, like how a mother would reach to its children after long separation. Calvin let it wash over him like a waterfall, and he drew out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The Castle was roughly crescent-shaped, its highest point being a large turret, followed by smaller towers connected by stone and arch. It then curved down to a huge dome like structure, flanked by four other towers, and this building connected to a large block of segmented towers, more identical to the medieval castles in England. It swooped down into a spacious courtyard, where an unusual stone statue—one which looked like an enormous dragon's wing emerging from the ground—marked its end, and the crescent shape's lower tip. There must be more parts of the castle at the rear end of the clearing, he thought.

Trees and underbrush were integrated everywhere, and Calvin heard the stirring of many other people in the castle. They arrived at a wrought iron gate, similar to Hogwarts, but entirely unprotected by magic. The strong wards are all they need, Calvin surmised. They opened without so much as a creak, and the ride carried on.

He carefully gauged each occupant's reactions. The boy with dark chocolate hair peered out of the carriage in excitement, and the girl beside him, too, looked out in interest, yet schooled an unimpressed look. The other girl didn't bat an eyelash at the scenery, her face glued to the book on Light wizards, and the boy next to him—

He started slightly when he found the boy staring openly at him.

The boy's shockingly green, innocent eyes widened and darted back to his hands as Calvin glared, and for a moment, Calvin felt some remorse in impressing himself on the boy like that, but then brushed the feeling aside. He had told himself before that coming here—and going to a wizarding school, for the matter—would involve interacting with other wizards and witches his age. He would have to learn how to deal with them as civilly as possible, and get used to the slowly forming reality that they would be equals in this school. He would not, however, permit himself to feel the slightest regret for things such as that. It was rude to stare, and the boy had it coming.

The carriage ride ended, and the door opened by itself. Calvin did not miss a beat and stepped out elegantly, pulling his robes towards him so they wouldn't snare on anything. He didn't look at the others as he walked the cobblestone path to the castle's entrance, where at the top of the steps stood a lean, long-limbed man wearing dark purple robes, and a willowy, beautiful woman wearing subdued reds.

Calvin stopped at the bottom of the steps and gazed at them. A few shuffles of feet and robes told him that the others stopped, too.

"My students," the man said, opening his arms in welcome, "the five of you are the last to arrive from Splinter Portal. I bid you all welcome to Ombra School of Magickery. I will be your personal adviser, Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenheim, or as my lengthy name implies, Doctor Paracelsus."

Calvin's eyes widened a fraction, and he noticed the raven-haired girl do the same. This must be the Paracelsus many history books talk about. To see a great, thought-to-be dead wizard in front of them was surprising.

_Or unsurprising, _Calvin thought, _if one knew Paracelsus._

Paracelsus was an Alchemist, renowned for breakthroughs in the Potions academe. He was not so shocked to find that the man must have discovered immortality to some degree. Wizards and scholars used his works to establish the foundations of Botany in the Muggle World and Herbology in the Wizarding one.

"Children, I bid thee welcome," said the woman, in an airy voice that made Calvin think of meadows and butterflies. "My name is Laverne de Montmorency, and I am the current Headmistress of Ombra."

She was unearthly, Calvin thought. She must have some magical creature in her blood, perhaps a Veela or some version of a Siren. Whatever it was, her voice had the slightest hint of compulsion, which drew their minds and soothed their anxiety. Calvin immediately didn't like how the woman easily threaded into his thoughts.

"You will enter Hippocrates' Square to undergo the Trial, where you would be, or would not be, bestowed the right to being Ombra's student," she said in a tone that assuaged the underlying implication of her words. _There's a chance that I will not be worthy._

Calvin clenched his fists. Whatever powers that suggest he was not worthy of being a student here must be backwater ignorant, or entirely unfamiliar with Bal-Sagoth.

"As had been done with each student before you, your wands would be used in the Trials."

The blonde girl had raised her hand in the middle of that sentence, and she spoke without being acknowledged. "Will we need them for battle, Madam Montmorency?"

Calvin was prepared if the Trial ever came to it. He knew some spells that could hurt other individuals and distract them, though his wand work needed practice. The little raven-haired boy fashioned an expression of mixed confusion and shock, and a tiny hint of fear.

"No. I assure you all that no spell would be fired during the Trial," she said. "Your wands will indicate the verdict of your Trial. Should you be deemed unworthy, your wand would snap, and the core inside would pull you out of OmbraValley."

Calvin nodded. He would pass this. His mother had all but forced him to go to Hogwarts to be educated in magic, considering the dangers of Ombra, and the extensive curriculum, but an offer like this was too rare to pass up. He had always been opportunistic that way—much like his father—at the cost of taking risks he didn't know the stakes of.

Ombra was indeed a secret school. Nobody knew of its existence, except its graduates, and they have been bound upon leaving. Communication, and entrance and exit from the valley had to be authorized—at least, that's what Calvin knew from the Pensieve the school sent.

"If you would please follow me," Doctor Paracelsus said, "I will take you to the Square. Your luggage will be transported to your rooms if you pass the Trial." Calvin noted the particular stress on the 'if' in that sentence, which only strengthened his hypothesis that some would-be students do fail the Trial, and are kicked out of the valley.

_At least this school starts a week early from the others. We can still send a confirmation owl to Hogwarts, or even Durmstrang, in the unlikely event that I don't make it through this._

Through the entrance, Calvin and the others were taken through a large corridor illuminated only by ceiling-to-floor stained glass windows. The angle of the sun, around an hour before high noon, made the hall look marvelously contrasting in light and shade. Stick to the wall and the arches, and one could hide unnoticed.

Through a few more hallways, and Calvin quickly found that most of Ombra's halls were decked with windows of different mosaic glasses, depicting scenes that sparked the would-be students' interests. One such window showed an image of a woman burning in a red and orange pyre, and a wizard casting water towards it with his wand. Another showed a glorious star shining bright on a dark blue desert, with three men on horse backs gazing towards it.

The halls, too, sang with magic and power, and Calvin itched to trace his hands on one of the walls' intricate carvings. He didn't stray from their group despite it, and they reached a large circular exit through the last hallway.

It opened into a meadow-like courtyard, buttercups lining the ancient stones and pillars littering the space. The wind blew through the well-kept grass, and Calvin's eyes followed the trail that lead to a wide circular platform. Around it, the students sat in clusters, with a few lower years sitting alone here and there. They walked, Doctor Paracelsus and Headmistress Montmorency

Calvin guessed that the older wizards standing near some of the students must be professors, or caretakers of the castle. Some of them looked very old and wise, while the others couldn't have been older than twenty. Calvin wondered whether all of the older wizards were once students of Ombra. He also eyed the glassy things moving on every person, making tinkering sounds. When they neared one group of students, he saw that they looked like tiny people. Glass men, he thought in wonder.

Everyone was gazing at them. Calvin felt a strange urge to scratch himself, but didn't entertain the thought. He faced the other students coolly, gazing intently at every possible set of eyes he could catch. He checked the others once again to see how they were reacting. The two boys looked quite nervous, especially the raven-haired, timid one, the blonde girl was doing the same thing, meeting students' gazes, and the pale girl wore a calm expression, her eyes straight ahead.

They reached the platform, and the Doctor and the Headmistress stood on it.

Headmistress Montmorency smiled. "Students! We now welcome the last of the candidates from Splinter Portal. All five of them will face the Trial of the Dome."

She drew out her wand, made out of dark blue wood that Calvin didn't recognize, and waved it in the air.

At least, that's what Calvin thought at first. But then it hit some kind of barrier, and waves upon waves came from where the wand's tip hit, and the small shockwaves expanded, and everyone saw the outline of the dome. It matched perfectly with the circular platform, and colors danced against the translucent barrier. Calvin breathed in astonishment. Merlin's beard, he heard the taller boy whisper.

"You shall enter by order of last name," Headmistress Montmorency said. She took out a small roll of parchment, and peered at it. "Calvin Bal-Sagoth."

Whispers broke out in the crowd. Calvin looked at everyone, yet ignored everyone muttering his name. All of them, except the raven-haired boy, stared at him knowingly.

"Step into the circle, and hold out your wand," the Headmistress said, coaxingly, misinterpreting Calvin's actions as hesitation.

Calvin trudged into the circle, and pointed his wand forward.

* * *

Around fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the dome, spat out from the other side. He had a few tears in his eyes and cheeks. Inside the dome, he had seen memories that he had rather not relive. But he conquered it, broke the cycle of illusions, and had come face to face with the deities. They showed him memories of his flaws and misgivings, and urged him to make a vow to rehabilitate himself from them while in the school. He had agreed to the conditions, for he thought he did need to fix them, temper them or purge himself of them completely.

His wand had disappeared in the dome, and had turned into a fiery ring as he spoke to the deities. They told him that in the fulfillment of the vow, he would be able to use his wand in this form, a better medium for channeling his affinity towards battle. It would suit his destiny, they said, and Calvin, dazed, had complied.

He had his wand in his hand again, and he stood, facing the large stone version of a dragon's wing they saw as they came, jutting upwards from the ground. It was taller than the smallest of towers in Ombra.

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he flinched a bit, before relaxing as he saw that it was Doctor Paracelsus. The man smiled at him.

"Well done, child. You passed. Sit on the grass and wait for your companions."

Calvin did as he was told, and sat on the grass. He could still see at the back of his eyes the visions he was shown in the dome, of his father murdering his uncle, who was supposed to succeed to power and inheritance, and Calvin, at eight years old, cowering silently behind a drawer, not making a sound in the hopes that his father wouldn't notice and kill him as well.

More of those visions flooded his memories, but he chose to ignore them, setting them aside in small compartments in his mind. Calvin found himself thinking more of the Trial in general than his own experience in it, just as Sienna Cinderwell was called into the dome.

He was wondering if anyone saw him while inside the dome, and realized that, though the dome was translucent, anyone who entered it was turned invisible. The Cinderwell girl, the blonde, bored-looking one, disappeared when she jumped onto the platform. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad no one had seen him in such a vulnerable state.

This time, it took around twenty minutes before Cinderwell reemerged from Calvin's side of the dome. She was bawling, and Doctor Paracelsus had to calm her down, bringing her to Calvin's patch of grass to sit. He stared coldly.

"It will be all right, young Sienna. You did marvelously. You passed the test," Doctor Paracelsus said comfortingly, and Sienna nodded, wiping the rest of the tears from her eyes. Calvin thought idly what she experienced in there that caused her to break into tears. _Losing her favorite pet maybe, or something equally shallow._ He also wondered what her wand could turn into if she has completed her vow.

"Antonio Exupery," the Headmistress called, and the brown-haired young boy jumped eagerly onto the platform, where he disappeared in the light of the shimmering dome.

He surveyed his surroundings. Hippocrates' Square was oddly shaped. It was a four-sided courtyard, with three of its sides flanked by forests which extended to the valley. He had a stroke of realization a moment later, that the castle perimeters weren't completely walled. It might have been so that there was open access to the forest.

He turned back and looked at the students. He thought of how the glass men and women were made. Maybe they give them to students after the Trial. After all, everyone, except a few who looked to be first years, had them on their shoulders, head, laps or pockets.

Cinderwell leaned her head on her knees and huddled to herself. Calvin didn't pay her any mind. She must still be rattled by the visions the deities gave.

The dome flared. Calvin estimated it to be around ten minutes, when Exupery came out of the dome, pale-faced and shivering. Doctor Paracelsus was on him at once, murmuring comforting words. He saw the Alchemist's hands glow as they settled on Exupery's arm and shoulder. _Diagnostic spells. He used them on me and the girl as well, to see if I'm all right._

Antonio took a labored breath of relief as he sat behind Calvin and Cinderwell. He seemed to have a look of grim determination more than fear and anxiety. He took one look at Cinderwell, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You'll be all right. We did well," he said reassuringly, and Cinderwell gave him a shy smile.

Calvin stared indifferently back at the dome as Marie Valendia was called. He could see, through the shimmering barrier that separated them and the audience, the raven-haired boy give a start. Calvin's eyes trained on him. He looked like he wanted to speak, but couldn't say the words lest they turn to vomit. He saw the growing anxiousness on the boy's face.

He thought, not for the first time, if the boy would even pass the Trial.

His eyes widened slightly when not even five minutes later, Valendia stepped out of the dome. She had a faint smile on her face. Doctor Paracelsus seemed as surprised as the rest of them, but chose not comment. He guided her to them, and she sat down next to Exupery.

"How did you get out so fast?" he asked her, Cinderwell focused on the two of them. Valendia shrugged, and said, "I knew they were illusions the second the visions started."

She said nothing else, her face trained on the dome. Calvin followed her gaze, and saw the raven-haired boy talking with the Headmistress. From the other side, Calvin could make out how quick and confused the boy talked, and he didn't know what was happening. His name had been called—Harry Wyllt-Potter—and he was curious as to what was causing the delay.

* * *

"But Madam," said Harry, his voice small yet sure, "my name isn't Harry Wyllt-Potter. It's only Harry Potter."

He had been sure of that, from the moment he had been transported from the Dursley house at the strike of midnight, July 30th, to a bedroom he didn't know, where a ghost had confronted him and told him that he was a wizard. James Potter, his dad, was also a wizard, whom he was named after. Harry James Potter. The ghost, his grandfather Isaac, would have told him if he had Wyllt in his name. His mother was Lily Evans, and he was sure that she wasn't a Wyllt either.

That was why he wondered why the girl, Marie Valendia, went before him, when clearly P's came before V's. He thought that his name was not on the list, which was even more mortifying, but that wasn't the case, to his immense relief. They only got his name wrong.

"But that's not possible, child. This parchment has centuries-old enchantments on it. It has never made a mistake since its creation. Now, go on. You are the only other student standing in front of me, and the only other student on this list." Headmistress Montmorency said patiently.

Harry sighed to himself. He was sure that he was not a Wyllt. How else could he have been wrong, then? Did his grandfather hold that piece of information against him?

He figured he could answer those questions later, when he contacted his grandfather's ghost in Potter Manor. For now, he saw no other choice but to enter the dome, and hope that he isn't thrown out of the valley, or worse, killed by the magic for deigning to impersonate someone he wasn't.

He stepped onto the platform and the dome consumed him.

Darkness.

* * *

Calvin was astounded. He wondered if he was right, if the boy did fail the Trial. The crowd had already gone impatient with waiting, and the air was filled with whispers of what might have happened. Valendia and Exupery were discussing what they assumed occurred with Potter inside the dome. Cinderwell's eyes were glassy in anticipation. Headmistress Montmorency was staring at the dome knowingly.

"Sir, what happened? It's been at least forty minutes already," Calvin asked Doctor Paracelsus, who was standing beside them. He was staring at the dome as well, waiting.

"I do not know, Mr Balsagoth. No one has ever stayed in there for more than half an hour." His expression showed his confusion with the situation, but also the fascination of having something uncanny happen.

"Did he fail the Trial?" Cinderwell said, looking up at the Alchemist.

"No, I reckon he hasn't. The dome turns dark if the student had failed, and the student is ejected with a spectacular burst of light, towards the portal he or she entered," he said, dazedly.

The dome was burning a bright golden hue, like a dimmer, miniature sun. Calvin thought, forgetting his tact, even if it was inside his own head, that Potter must have broken the dome somewhat.

And then, a huge rupture burst from the side of the dome, with rays of light shooting from the cracks, and with a flash of light, Potter stepped out of the dome. The glassy structure dimmed at once, and the colors turned into ripples, resonating back to the earth, making the barrier disappear into the platform.

Doctor Paracelsus was on him at once, his diagnostic spells more obvious as he scanned Potter's whole body and asked about the boy's current mental and emotional state. Potter seemed to be fine, shell-shocked but breathing normally, and he stared at the Alchemist for a second, as if he wanted to say something. But he shook his head, looked down, and let himself be guided towards them. Calvin wanted to glare at the boy. He didn't know the motivation behind it, but he wanted to make the boy feel the same way again, when they were in the carriage and Potter was staring at him.

"The Trial of the last journeymen from Splinter Portal is over," the Headmistress declared. "We shall move to the Dining Hall for lunch and commence with the Welcoming of the Seeds. After that, your advisers will take you to your common rooms, where you will settle."

With a flurry of robes, Headmistress Montmorency strode back to the castle, the students and their advisers hot on her heels. Doctor Paracelsus smiled at them, and led them to the trail back to the castle. All the while, Calvin saw most of the students glancing at Potter, hushed words exchanged regarding the mysterious amount of time it took for his Trial to finish, and what ticked Calvin off was that Potter was oblivious to all of it.

Calvin didn't quite comprehend how such an ordinary little boy could cause such a commotion. He found Potter inexcusable, and unlearned, and quite withdrawn, traits which, as far as Calvin knew, weren't defining traits of an Ombran. He settled for light brooding, and thinking about how much he would learn in Ombra's walls, instead of the boy who kept pace near him, so normal yet so contradictory.

They reached the Dining Hall. For one, it had several long tables and chairs, with statues and different kinds of art and sculptures lining the walls. It was different from the image Calvin had seen of Hogwarts, where torches and banners alternated behind the farthest long tables. What defined it from Hogwarts was that it had a domed ceiling, and light filtered through it like frosted glass. It gave the Hall an ethereal feel, the tables basking in pure blankets of light. Up front, a long table was set vertically, where all the staff sat after leading their advisees to their seats. Doctor Paracelsus led them to the farthest table to the left, sat them, and winked, before going to the staff table.

Calvin was seated next to Valendia. Across them sat Potter, sandwiched in between Cinderwell and Exupery.

"Harry, is it?" Exupery inquired. "Hello. I'm Antonio."

Potter's cheeks colored. "Hullo … It's nice to meet you, Antonio." The tanned boy smiled, and shook hands with Potter.

"I'm Sienna," the girl said haughtily. "And you may call me that, if you promise not to steal any of my things or humiliate me."

Exupery gave her a wave. Potter looked aghast for a second, before nodding jerkily. Valendia was reading her book again, and Calvin wondered where she hid such a large tome. He made to ask, but that would require some form of interaction, which Calvin was not ready for, and Valendia wasn't inclined to let happen. It wasn't that he was shy—he just didn't find the need to intermingle with anyone he didn't have a clear picture of. He would observe them first, before anything.

"Students, if I may have your attention," the Headmistress said, standing behind a pedestal.

She gave her welcoming speech. Calvin was only half-listening, despite her loud voice through a _Sonorus _charm. Instead he scanned the Hall. The walls surged with magical power, as did the students. He found power upon power looping around each other, silently acknowledging each others' presence, testing the foreign waves each magical core exuded. He found his own reaching out, interested, curiosity piqued, and he sought to fold them back into his control.

He caught the words, 'forbidden to walk into the forests unprotected' and 'materials provided by the school for every class' but didn't pay attention to much else. It was just filled with guidelines that only a moron would be ignorant to forget.

"You should be listening to the speech," Valendia said without looking up from her book, and Calvin's eyes narrowed at her.

"I could say the same to you," he shot back.

The pale girl gave her a smile. "I caught every word she said. Besides, I know more about this school than any of the other first years."

"Really? And how is that?" Calvin asked, lacing his tone with disinterest. It was a different matter with the others deciding to intermingle with him, as opposed to him making the first move. He never made the first move, except to strike with words or magic.

"My sister is a professor," Valendia said, and returned to her book as if nothing had transpired between them.

"Fascinating," Calvin said with no hint of such fascination. He didn't know what she was doing, talking to him, when he gave off every indication that he didn't want anyone's conversation. He mustn't have been cold enough.

"And now, we welcome the seeds of the Midlight flower, one that blooms in the middle of August, and releases its magical spores when the sun is high. May we have a prosperous, productive school year!"

As if on cue, flowers burst into life from the windows, and Calvin eyebrows rose when they did. He didn't notice them before, the small vines that lined the windowsills, and cursed at himself for not paying so much attention to his surroundings.

The flowers danced in the light of the domed ceiling, waving gently to the flowing winds, and they sparked to life as mini explosions of light, releasing into the air wispy, glowing spores, like stars and dandelions bred together.

Calvin panicked, not knowing what to do as the spores closed in on them. For all he knew, the spores were poisonous, or acidic, or ate through human flesh. One uneasy glance at Valendia changed that train of thought.

She was smiling at him, her eyes telling him what she didn't choose to voice. _I told you to listen._

The spores floated around her and she laughed as one tickled her nose, and another entered it. She must have been mad for inhaling it. It could have rooted firmly onto her throat, and burst to life, flaying her neck.

But it didn't, and Calvin let paranoia wash away from him as he glanced at the other students. They were gathering spores, letting them rub onto their skin and cling to their hair. The others batted at them annoyingly, and some even held their tongues out. Potter went cross-eyed as one settled on his nose, and Cinderwell gathered as much as she could from the table. Exupery shook his head, sending tens of hundreds of them flying from his brown hair.

"Let the Midlight flower bless you with the promise of the completion of your vows, and the attainment of all the knowledge Ombra has to offer," the headmistress said. "And now, the feast!"

Food appeared on plates a moment later, and Calvin found a complete dining set in front of him. He saw the others start piling up food for lunch, and made to do the same. He took something that seemed to be pork glowing in a very enticing sauce, and few scoops of mashed something.

As he forked some food into his mouth, he found Potter eating at the same pace as he was, which was to say, slower and more proper than normal. He also saw, with a hint of approval, Potter using the correct table setting for each food. _He might not be so hopeless, _he thought.

They ate in moderate silence. At least he did, not meeting the eyes of anyone. Exupery had found it necessary to talk to Valendia, and formally introduce himself. Valendia was amicable, and introduced herself to Cinderwell and Potter as well. Calvin didn't give a flying Hippogriff. He stared resolutely at his plate, and continued eating without conversing with anyone with between.

He found himself listening to Valendia as she recounted some tales around Ombra, the portals that opened here and there, the ghosts that possessed inanimate objects, the Dawn and the Dusk Library. He would have liked to discover things around the castle by himself thanks, but he knew that any information regarding the place was useful.

"So, is it true that Merlin himself made this place?" Exupery asked. Now that he found himself listening, he could tell that Antonio had a slight, waning accent. It was definitely south-western.

"That's arguable," Cinderwell said after swallowing some fish. "Relics in the castle date back to older than Merlin's time."

"Well, yes, but he could have easily acquired them through his magic. He was the most powerful wizard in history, after all," Exupery retorted.

"Not quite." Valendia finished eating, and wiped her mouth with a table napkin. "He had opposition in the form of Lady Morgana, the first Dark Lady."

Morgan le Fey. Calvin knew the fey tales. It was said that she was only half-human, the rest of her an unearthly powerful magical being.

"What do you think, Harry?" Antonio asked.

* * *

Harry was still caught up with the visions he experienced. Recalling them made his eyes prickle, and his mind protest, so he settled for evaluating them at the surface. Why did the deities show him illusions that alluded to no personal history? He would have thought that they would show him something horrifying, like the way he had been treated in the past, but instead the deities showed him the horrors of the future where he had strayed from his destiny.

It was truly horrendous. The sky was dark, yet the sun glowed high, a large, glowing ball trying to illuminate the horizon, but failing. The land was barren, and he could see remnants of buildings and burning trees. This had once been the Muggle city of London, burned and reduced to ashes. People were still alive, barely. Most of those still alive begged for death, or suffered so much damage that they couldn't even plead for release.

In the distance stood a being with red eyes, cloaked in darkness, rimmed with silver, magical power. He wielded a white wand, a direct contrast to the dark that surrounded him, and he waved it, more like slashed it into the air and rendered space.

The sky turned darker, and from the other direction, Harry saw a fragment of the moon crash towards the ground. A mountain was reduced to rubble, and the resulting explosion was a mixture of storms and molten rock.

His heart filled with an aching sense of righteousness. He needed to stop that creature from causing destruction.

He asked them how he was to do this, when he was nothing special. The deities said nothing more than the conditions of his vow. Should he realize the way to his destiny, he would receive his medium. Should he stray from his destiny, the magic inside him will implode, and return to the Earth, and he will be left a lifeless shell.

He accepted it, with the same amount of belief he had when he accepted his grandfather's story and his wizarding roots.

After exiting the dome, he remembered nothing of the visions he had, but only of the vow he took, and the uncertain way he could achieve it.

While Antonio and the others were eating, he tried to recall the memories, but couldn't. He felt a block that wasn't supposed to be there. It was uncanny how he knew he had memories being blocked, but didn't know the memories themselves. It made him think that he must break the block someday, to find his answers.

He blushed when Antonio addressed him. He knew nothing of Ombra castle, and only a month's knowledge of wizarding history. He tried to take in as much information he could from the Manor's libraries, and from his grandfather's lessons, but he could only absorb so much as pureblood niceties and basics in magic and creatures.

He voiced his opinions honestly.

"I really don't know. Each of your arguments can be helped with the right amount of information."

That response seemed to satisfy them, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they weren't looking. He was going to have to read a lot into history and culture and magic, if he was going to study in such a place where the knowledge was common.

* * *

Calvin found Potter's response very diplomatic, though he once again chose not to join the conversation. Soon, everyone was finished with their meals, and the Hall buzzed with chatter. Calvin would have liked to spend the rest of the day exploring the castle, or the libraries Valendia mentioned, but the Headmistress dismissed that thought with her final speech.

"Your advisers will now take you to your common rooms, where they would assign duties to each student in each cluster. The Trial has bound you all to your companions through the Portal, and hence would be living in close quarters to them. Class schedules will also be given later, and you would be free to choose them, with or without accord to your journeymen's schedules. Each student would be advised on which classes to take, based on their magical core's affinity." The Headmistress smiled once again, a slow, proud smile. "Now, off you go!"

Sounds of movement from the students, and they were standing, chatter dominating once again, and Calvin was surprised to see Doctor Paracelsus next to them already.

"Shall I show you to your rooms?" he said, grinning in what Calvin could only think of as enthusiasm.

* * *

Calvin would have to get used to the magic, tumbling down like river rapids through some of the halls. It was an entirely unpredictable place, Ombra, proven by the way some halls led to dead ends when they didn't before, or the way tapestries would fall on students and threaten to eat them. Everything seemed to be alive with magic—the statues, the potted plants, even the purple flamed torches in the inner halls. Calvin was careful not to drink any of it in, or let his magical core mix with the latent magic. It could prove disastrous if his magic hooked onto an interesting branch of magic, and hung on for days without letting him go.

He wondered in irritation if any of the others felt the way he did, all tense and balled up like a ball of stretched rubber bands. Valendia was reading her book once again—Calvin was mildly impressed at how she dodged unwitting obstacles as she walked, while managing to find the words to answer Cinderwell's pestering questions about the book. The blonde had given up after a while, huffing in annoyance. She must have been trying to drive Valendia mad with the insistent questions.

Exupery was, to Calvin's utter lack of surprise, blithe and inattentive. Often he would turn the wrong corner while the rest of them went the other way, and he would realize his ignorance, blush a little, then catch up to them. His head was in the clouds, and Calvin thought he was definitely thinking hard about something.

And Potter. Calvin's eyes narrowed at him once again. He was following Doctor Paracelsus like a duckling, once again seeking to enjoy the little walk by himself. For some reason Calvin was once again infuriated with him.

Before long, they reached a small alcove, with runes lining the arch in intricate detail. He noticed how it was just a stone wall under the arch, and there was no door for them to enter. This had to be their rooms. They wouldn't have stopped otherwise. He squinted his eyes a bit to examine them, but the doctor had already drawn his wand.

He held his wand up, pointing towards the uppermost rune. It glowed at being acknowledged. "I come to settle the journeymen of Splinter, whose guardian Taurus has granted them passage. Speak now, Ombran roots, from which Midflower bloomed and blessed them. Grant them the powers of the Earth, and the guardian fitting them."

The rune radiated a golden brown hue, throbbing, and then touching the runes near it. They glowed, their light beating like hearts, and rune by rune the entire arch was illuminated. Light pierced through the dead stone inside, carving intricate designs onto the wall, and Calvin had to look away or risk temporary blindness. When the light ceased they all turned to look, and found an ornate wooden door. Carved on it was a grandfather clock.

"Horologium," Doctor Paracelsus breathed. "The Pendulum Clock."

They all stared at the golden lines, almost hesitant to look away, but the Alchemist broke their concentration when he opened the door and beckoned for them.

They stepped through the arch, and found themselves in a large room with a fireplace, sofas and cushions, tables, and walls lined with bookshelves, which, to Calvin's pleasure, was decked with different kinds of books.

"Go on then, find somewhere to sit, and I'll discuss with you this room," Doctor Paracelsus said, grinning at their awed faces. Potter sat on the largest couch, and so did Valendia. Calvin took a lone sofa, Exupery sat on a fluffy cushion bag on the floor, and Cinderwell sat on a chair where she rested her head and elbow on a table.

"This would be your common room for the duration of your stay," said the Alchemist. "The loo's back there through that hallway—"he pointed towards a narrow space at the back,"—and those set of stairs will lead you to your rooms. Your belongings have already been transported into them. The boys will board together, and so will the girls."

Calvin frowned at that. He thought he might get some solace in this place with private rooms. With that idea gone, he glanced at Potter and Exupery. He blanched at the thought of who he would like to board with less. This one he had no preparation for. He knew Hogwarts was a boarding school, where students shared rooms and private spaces. Why wasn't his preparation for that the same as this one?

_Because I didn't know who I was boarding with, then. Right now, I don't know which one's easier to get along with—that raven-haired runt or that happy-go-lucky one._

Doctor Paracelsus broke through his reverie. "That settles it, then. You may now make yourselves comfortable in your rooms. I will knock a few moments later to discuss with you which classes you would like to take."


	2. The First Letters

**Notes:** This is a rewrite of Greatness Beyond Power. I wanted to rewrite it because my writing had been sloppy and careless. I hope that this one sounds better.

**Break 1:** The First Letters

_Dear Mother,_

I passed the Trial. I know that you know of this already, because I had not been rejected back to Dartmoor. I write this to you in good will. I have chosen my classes, and I am not asking you for permission to take them, for I already have submitted my choices to Doctor Paracelsus (who happens to be the authentic, fabled one this time), but rather to advise me and judge me on whether my decisions have been sound. Of course, I'm taking _Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic_ and _History and Cultures of the Wizarding World_ as first-year requirements, though we both know that you've educated me tirelessly in those respects. I've decided to see the _Charms_ and _Transfigurations_ classes through until my sixth year, as well. But mother, despite your inclinations of my learning more about _History and Culture_, I took _Arithmancy_ and _Runes and Glyphs_, in the hopes that I can also take up _Warding_ in my later years. Runes have always fascinated me, especially the ancient ways of Glyph Inscribing that our family's libraries had lost to the Purge.

I also write to you in the hopes of enlightening me. I would like for you to send back some information regarding one of my journeymen, Calvin Balsagoth. The name has stricken me as familiar. I think he is a Royal. Do they still exist, mother? The mythical House of Bals?

Please write me back about my decisions and my inquiries. I am doing well, and settling in for the night. School starts tomorrow, for Ombra doesn't give its students idle time. I hope this letter gets to you in good will, as well.

_Your Loving Daughter,_

_Marie_

* * *

_Dear Gerardo,_

I did it! I passed! I must admit, I did have some trepidation with the Trial in the dome, but it didn't turn out to be so scary after all. How's father? And our brothers? Did Tiago send me the Quidditch jersey from the _San Isidro Toreros_ that I wanted so badly?

I got the usual classes, plus _Charms_ and _Transfigurations_, though I doubt I'd see them through. And I also got _Battle Magic_, like you and all our older brothers. I didn't want to, but Father would have my head if I wasn't prepared for war. Grandmother Guadalupe was a Seer, and she had foretold of war coming. I'd rather heed that warning and prepare myself for it, like all of you did. Also, you know that I don't want to be overshadowed by any of you, and the only other option I had left was _Astronomy_. I want to use our latent _Divination_ powers for war. I know Ombra has special access to ancient teachings and books about it, and I'm hoping that my choice pays off in the future.

I also wanted to ask you about this interesting boy who turned out to be one of my journeymen. He wears the funniest glasses and has the clearest emerald eyes I've ever seen. His name is Harry Wyllt-Potter, though he says that he's just Harry Potter. Isn't that odd? Don't you think he should have an idea of who he is?

You know why I'm writing to you, brother. All of our brothers are busy with work, and father's wards still burn any owls from me. I already killed Manolete indirectly by deigning to send father one. I won't risk Rosette. She is such a beautiful owl.

_With love and shared mischief,_

_Antonio_

* * *

_Father,_

I write to you because you told me to. I enclosed my classes with this letter, which means that I'm studying in Ombra. I don't care if it is against your wishes. Beauxbatons is full of stuck-up snotty Purebloods. I would much rather mingle with free intellectuals than elitists with only money and politics in their bloated heads. This will be the last letter you'll receive from me this year.

_Sienna_

Classes:

_Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic_

_History and Cultures of the Wizarding World I_

_Charms I_

_Transfigurations I_

_Herbology I_

_Magizoology I_

I want to be a Potioneer and a Healer someday. I hope you respect my decisions, unlike some of the others that I made.

* * *

_Dear Father, Mother,_

I hope that you have inferred by now that I passed the Trial, and have therefore become an official Ombran student. I would have liked to meet with you, but the school has certain policies restricting us from leaving the valley. It won't be until the holidays when I could go back to the palace.

It's very different here, and I admit that I'm not used to living in such close proximity as two of my journeymen, or walking the halls with students that I am forced to consider as equals, at least in power and intellect. But you were right, father, and I'm sorry mother—it would have been much different if I chose to go to Hogwarts. I understand now, father, why you let me go to OmbraSchool instead of Hogwarts. It would be a test of my adaptability, my prudence, my moderation, and my right as heir. I know that now. I would have to face everyone and temper, if not let go of, my prejudices and misconceptions.

I attached my chosen classes to this letter. I hope that you find them satisfactory.

I would also like it if our subjects would be so kind as to search for information regarding a certain Marie Valendia. She's one of my journeymen, and very peculiar. I have a hunch that she somehow has knowledge of us.

Along with information about her, I would also like the subjects to find information about Harry Wyllt Potter.

_My Love and Regards,_

_Calvin_

Classes:

_History and Cultures of the Wizarding World I_

_Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic_

_Transfigurations I_

_Charms I_

_Dark Arts and their Defence I_

_Light Arts I_

* * *

_Dear Grandfather,_

I'm rather new to this owl writing. I find it odd yet very exciting. I'll have to read on how they work, exactly. I know you wouldn't be able to open this but I'm sure our House Elf Sassy will.

I don't think I should ask how the Manor's doing. You've told me that before I came, it had been untouched and collecting dust. Thank goodness that the wards woke Sassy from her sleep. I hope that she's taking care of the place. How different is elf magic from a wizard's anyway, that she is more efficient at it? I'll have to read on that as well. Marie, one of my journeymen, told me that Ombra has an extensive library called Dawn and Dusk, facing the east and west, respectively. All that illuminates it are windows, and the sun's rising and setting. I think I'll be spending a lot of time there.

I didn't know which classes to take, but I followed my instincts and my heart, like you told me to. Doctor Paracelsus said that I had to take _History and Cultures of the Wizarding World _and _Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic_, which I did. I'm actually excited those classes. Of course, I'm going to read on the Wizarding World and Magic as soon as I'm allowed to, too, so that I'd understand as much of this world as possible. A year ago it never would have crossed my mind that any of these existed, and I'm rather happy that I get to stay here for a year, away from my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Dudley.

Aside from that, I thought that I should learn everything I could about both _Light Arts_ and _Dark Arts_. I took those classes as well, along with _Charms_ and _Transfiguration_, which I thought could be interesting.

Grandfather, I don't think that I would have such a hard time in this place. You worry too much. I'll be fine. I wish I could have spent more time in the Manor, and heard more of your stories about dad and his antics as a child, but the people here are nice, especially my adviser, Doctor Paracelsus. I'll be back during the Yule holidays, so let's both look forward to that!

I'm looking forward to school tomorrow. I'm not sure if I made friends with two students, Antonio and Sienna. I hope I did. They seem to be nice people.

_Your grandson,_

_Harry_


	3. Change

**Chapter 2:** Change

Two human shaped blurs popped into existence in Privet Drive's street. Only one of them had their hood drawn over his head, Severus Snape, the more cautious of the two. They were tasked to check on the magical child living around the place. They decided to Apparate late at night so that no Muggle would see them. No one was walking the streets that late into the night, yet Severus was too paranoid a man, that he still used Disillusionment charms on the both of them.

Severus was muttering under his breath, and Remus Lupin wasn't listening to any of it. He was looking forward to finally seeing James' and Lily's son. Harry had turned eleven two weeks ago, and he was as excited as Harry was hopefully going to be when he received his Hogwarts letter from one of his godfathers. It was peculiar when Hagrid had come back two weeks ago, telling them that the Dursleys weren't there. They decided that they all must have gone on a holiday, since it was still summer. Did he grow up to be lanky and blind like his father? Was his smile as wide as the one his mother gave him often when she cradled him back then?

It was easy to get lost in Privet Drive, despite its wide, uncomplicated streets. If one didn't look hard enough, the houses looked so much alike that it seemed like the Muggles living here found it an abomination to stick out of line. The two wizards couldn't imagine living in such a distinctly Muggle place, though both of them were halfblood.

Severus half-expected something grander breaking the monotony of the houses. A slightly bigger house, maybe, or some tall hedges that didn't match the picket fences. Anything that would show how pompous Potter was.

"Here we are," Remus breathed into the still night. Severus despised him, for reasons easily explainable. He owed the Potter family a life debt because of Remus' lycanthropy. The magic didn't see the injustice in that. Potter had clearly, indirectly put him in danger thanks to Black. Individuals who created the danger for the one in debt weren't supposed to be allowed to incur life debts. It was an atrocious bastardization of the sacred magic, and Severus could not stand for it.

But he grudgingly knew that Lupin was not like Black or Potter. He was the more sensible one—ironic, since he was the half-blood. _Well, less than half-blood._

He turned towards the direction Remus was facing, and was met with a house, just as white and picket-fenced as the next, oh, hundred houses.

It was no secret that the Potters were wealthy. Theirs came from a line of blood untouched by non-magical folk, or creatures able to breed with humans. The books told of the Potters as masters of their trade, conquerors, feudal lords, royalty and the like. Even a generation past, Abraxas Cepheus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's father, shared with Isaac Potter the title of most skillful Potioneer at the time.

But seeing all that former glory, reduced to this carbon copy was an abomination, even if it did belong to Lily's sister, that horse-face Petunia. He schooled his features into a nonplussed one.

Didn't Potter think it wise to leave funds for his son, whom he knew was the target of a Dark Lord? Or was he so sure that they would get through this ordeal unscathed, and didn't plan anything for that scenario?

"It's such a plain house," Remus whispered. Severus' trained ears heard him clearly.

"Quite," was his curt reply.

"We should be polite in greeting them. It's almost midnight, after all," Remus said. Severus read the lines, '_don't frighten them' _in Remus' pointed gaze.

They strode across the lawn, and Severus distastefully glanced at the different toys littering the yard. Reaching the steps to the front door, Severus hung back as Remus came forward, and gave three precise knocks. He added a wordless charm that should have woken them.

Half a minute passed and the porch lights were on. Remus felt the floorboards to the Dursley porch rumble, and the door was swung open so fast that cold air gushed from the two wizards.

"What" What the ruddy hell is it? It's almost midnight!" cried Vernon Dursley, his voice gruff. Severus curled his lips in revulsion. He thought it must be Petunia's husband. She hung behind her, as twiggy and horse-faced as ever, and Severus sneered. Their faces changed into mild fury and terror, a sign that they recognized the two men as wizards.

"You! You … freaks of nature!" Vernon's face was beet red, and his voice shook. "What the devil are you doing here?"

"We're here for Harry. Is he here?" Remus asked as politely as he could. Severus could tell right off the bat that the werewolf inside Lupin was aching to lash out.

"That … that ungrateful freak! Why, he's left! Ran off, I'd say. The bastard. After all we've done for him!" Vernon grunted.

Petunia's fear was still there, and she was gawking at Severus. She couldn't have forgotten such a hooked nose, and memories fueled by envy and abhorrence rushed in. This was one of the people who stole Lily away from her, and corrupted her, turning her into one of them.

Severus didn't have to force her to look. His Occlumency attack pierced at her eyes so hard she stumbled back, and images filled his mind, as if her head was split and the fluids inside was poured onto his own.

_The images rippled, like rain on a pond subsiding, until shadows of what once was filled his consciousness._

_A baby inside a basket, being glared at with such loathing and vehemence that it could have combusted in flames of hatred._

_The scene shifted, a four-year old boy, too small to be working, and too scrawny, and yet scrubbing the floors so diligently, while another bloated child threw mush from his plate onto the floor._

_Another ripple, and it was darker, a six-year old standing on phone books, cooking what seemed to be dinner. Severus' senses smelled burning food, and Petunia walked in, bringing with her wrath no child deserved. She held him by the shoulders, too narrow and sunken, and slapped him, hard. "You stupid, stupid child!" she yelled. Little Harry cried, murmuring small, sincere apologies._

It was Remus who had dragged him back to reality, and in Petunia's eyes she saw even greater terror.

"What did you do to her?" Vernon demanded, his voice and mustache shaking in a mixture of rage and fear.

_"_Severus?" Remus said, looking confused at Severus expression, which turned suddenly dark, and very, very angry.

* * *

Harry listened intently to his History professor, an old, dreamy-eyed man by the name of Cornelius Agrippa. He held nobody's attention but Harry's, because of the way he droned his words and drained every color from the stories he told. The professor was also oblivious to the students not listening to him, and the students in turn, held no protest. The old wizard ran through what only Harry could follow as the history of Ombra valley.

It was a very dull lecture. Antonio was dozing off, a product of a sleepless night watching the stars move. He was planning to use the class to sleep so he could be awake for Astronomy classes later in the night, if the professor didn't catch him behind his book. After all, he was going to have to adjust his body's clock if he was going to keep up with his class schedules. Marie ignored Professor Agrippa completely, and read the book provided instead. It proved to be a more reliable source of the information they needed for exams, than the dull monotone of the professor's stories. Calvin was itching to get out of the class, his eyes narrowed at the professor, and Sienna was bored, twirling her curls in her index finger as she stared outside the window. And the others students did the same, in one way or another.

Harry was fascinated by how the creation of the valley happened. It was said that Merlin was a part of King Arthur's Court, tasked with handling Morgan le Fey, a witch with extraordinary magical power. Merlin was a Light wizard, who sympathized deeply with Muggles, while Morgan resented them, reserving a special kind of hatred for knights who spit on chivalry. She started studying magic when a knight named Uther Pendragon killed her father and married her mother. She couldn't do anything then, powerless as she was, and her thirst for vengeance fueled her thirst for magic.

For some time she studied under Merlin's tutelage, who was at the time already powerful. Exposed to the daily workings of the Court, she uncovered Queen Guinevere's secret, a love affair that she and Sir Lancelot, King Arthur's chief knight, hid under King's nose. The Queen, aware that Morgan had found out, banished the witch from the castle, and soiled her reputation with Merlin, telling him that Morgan was a practitioner of wild, Dark magic. It was the Queen's word against a witch's, and she was turned enemy of the Court.

This, coupled with the acquisition of news that Uther Pendragon was Arthur's father, and that he was her half-brother, sparked her deep, fathomless rage. Dark Magic burst from her core in waves, and she was the first ever recorded Dark Lady. Her goal then was to erase the very existence of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and everything they held dear.

But Merlin was a Light Lord, with power and decades of experience under his belt. He fought against Morgan le Fey, and the clash of their tremendous magic created Dartmoor. Light triumphed over Dark, and Morgan le Fey was almost reduced to nothing, but not without mortally wounding Merlin. King Arthur dealt the mighty blow from behind her, with his sword Excalibur, killing her.

A cursed disease spread over Merlin, and he was left with his magic sealed by the curse. He left the castle in search of a cure.

Unbeknownst to them, Morgan le Fey, before she died, had ordered one of the royal subjects to slip Queen Guinevere one of her invented potions during the feast that followed, forcing her to tell the truth to her husband. Veritaserum, it was called, and it spilled all of her secrets into ears of the Round Table, including the King's, thanks to the royal subjects clever manipulations.

It was said that this betrayal of his chief knight and his Queen brought about the fall of the kingdom. News of this reached Merlin in his travels, and he went back to Britain, only to find the Round Table disbanded, and the King and Queen dead. Overcome with grief, his magic surged and broke through the curse, engulfing King Arthur's kingdom in light.

The resulting magical outburst caused a rift in the magics surrounding Dartmoor, and it took Merlin's life. The magic brought the castle and the valley into the rift, and rippled through the whole world, sending different magical creatures and plants into the valley.

Merlin's apprentices in the castle were miraculously alive, and sought to protect the castle from the creatures, warding its walls with magic. They created Portals through which they could go back to the real world, and sealed them with ancient magic. The castle thrived due to the residue Merlin's magic left, and his apprentices, to honor Merlin's legacy, turned the castle into a school, naming it Ombra, after Merlin's head apprentice.

The traitor in King Arthur's court however, happened to be one of Merlin's apprentices, and, using the last of Morgan le Fey's shared power, created a tower at the edge of the valley, called Morgana's Sepulchre, where she laid her bones. Only a descendant of the witch who created the tower would have access to Lady Morgana's bones.

"Up to this day," Professor Agrippa droned, "no one has ever entered the sepulchre, found west of OmbraCastle."

They were dismissed, and almost everyone stood, except for those few who were dozing, and Harry, who scribbled the last of what he could remember from the professor's story onto parchment. He tucked it into the small bag Sassy gave him, along with the rest of his things, and took off. He had a break after the class, and he thought he could get a head start on his reading by going to the Dawn Library.

He smiled to himself, looking forward to his first visit, when a hand tugged a bit too hard at his sleeve before he was out the door. He tried to conceal a flinch, closing his eyes, but still made a tiny wince. It reminded him too much of his aunt, the way she would grab her by the sleeve or his collar.

It was Antonio, his eyes bright, smiling broadly at him, but his smile faltered a bit when he caught the wince.

"Sienna and I were going to explore the castle—you know, since we never really got the chance. She's trying to get Marie to come with us, and maybe Calvin as well—"he made a sour face at that, and Harry forced a smile,—since Marie knows the place a lot and Calvin would be left alone. You wanna join us?"

Harry thought about it. He glanced at Antonio's expectant face and sighed inwardly, smiling wider at him. His first trip to the library will have to wait.

"All right. I'm coming," he said, and he let himself be eagerly pulled along by Antonio, towards Marie who was smiling slightly at them, and Sienna, who was pouting at Calvin, looking irritated at her.

* * *

In the end, Calvin joined them. He supposed, grudgingly, that he would have to get used to the castle's confusing halls if he wanted to come to his daily classes on time. Valendia said she knew the castle, and he wasn't disinclined to believe that. She was the one who brought them to their _History and Cultures _class on time. Calvin found it foolish of the professors not to give any of them directions to their classes, and he half-guessed that it was their small way of testing their students' survivability. _A load of bollocks, that is._

Calvin found an old beauty to Ombra's halls and corridors. The Music Hall, were some higher years set up soundproofing glyphs and played their instruments, was dancing with light and color. It seemed like the Hall was enchanted to react to music-channeled magic, the copper and bronze colors of the walls vibrating and rippling in what Calvin could only describe as glee.

And then they found the Herbology House, a tower infested with different kinds of plants. Only a few of them were potted—that is, the tower, as a small plaque near the entrance explained, was completely stuffed with rich soils, and the large tower had dozens of trees growing inside it. The roof was made of steel frames and glass, and Calvin was surprised when Valendia discussed them with him in length. Calvin had to admit that Marie—they decided to refer to each other in a less formal manner then—wasn't a bad conversationalist. Cinderwell only turned away from them and proceeded to badger Potter when they started discussing presumptions of when exactly the glass and steel were placed there, because the technology sure didn't exist in the Dark Ages.

Calvin wasn't sure, but he noticed how Potter wasn't so at ease whenever somebody got too close and touched him, and he used a fair amount of distractions that Calvin had to admit with clever, like when he tricked Exupery into tickling a Bubotuber plant. The splash of pus caused a tiny quirk of Calvin's lips, and made Cinderwell and Potter laugh, the latter chuckling in a bit of a subdued manner—Calvin had been trained to see through them—and Exupery, covered in slime, to giggle along with them after his open-mouthed shock. Luckily the professor was there to help with the pus, much to the boy's relief, and Cinderwell lit up, keen on asking the professor questions about Herbology.

_Idiots, the lot of them._

Calvin was walking back to the Dining Hall with them after that, and Cinderwell was on Potter this time, asking about where he came from and what his family was like. Exupery perked up at the question, and grinned expectantly at Potter. Marie's attention was back on her book, flipping through it indulgently, and Calvin feigned disinterest, walking a few steps ahead of them, though his ears were trained back and he was listening intently.

"Um," Harry said, skin flushed red at the sudden attention on him, "well, I used to live with Uncle and Aunt, and my cousin, Dudley … but I live back with my grandfather now. What about you two?"

Calvin thought it was awfully vague, but he wasn't commenting. Exupery seemed all too happy to talk about their families, not pressing further, and Calvin thought that Potter was all too relieved his little diversion worked. Potter had been dodgy the whole break period, and Calvin can read his behavior perfectly. There's something behind that kind of behavior, and Calvin was going to find out.

* * *

Harry was secretly glad that he had less people to spend time with after, even though he really did enjoy their company. He could see that Calvin and Marie were very clever and observant, and sometimes he felt their eyes on him, questioning gazes that made Harry want to hide under a rock.

The two had Transfigurations class together, leaving him with Antonio and Sienna heading for the Charms classroom, which Marie told them was at the second floor east wing. Harry was content to listen to Antonio as he told him about his interesting family, smiling at the bright boy.

"… and my brother, Santiago—you should meet him, Harry, I'm sure you'd flip if I told you he's in the Spanish National Quidditch team—oh wait, I just did," he chuckled hopelessly to himself, "and he—"

"—Wait, what?" Harry's face turned to Antonio with a confused expression. "What's Quidditch?"

Antonio gaped at him, and Sienna concealed a laugh. "Quidditch, Harry, is—"he seemed unable to put such a glorious thing into words,"—why in Merlin's name don't you know Quidditch?"

Harry tensed slightly, but forced himself to relax, and made him skim over his most recent memories. He was not unfamiliar with the word Quidditch, that is, he should have encountered it somewhere before …

Harry smiled, and glanced at Antonio as they walked. He barely remembered his grandfather's stories, but they came to him. "I was just pulling your leg. Of course I know Quidditch. My father used to be a Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team at Hogwarts."

Antonio beamed, and proceeded to chatter. "Then you _must _play with me sometime this week, Harry—I'm sure you're amazing as a Seeker—I mean—"

"—he said his father was the Seeker, not him," Sienna said, amused, but Antonio went on.

"—I'm not saying that you're small, Harry—but you know, it's there, and you are," he laughed, and Harry let the boy lead the conversation, until they reached the Charms classroom. He was trying to look anxious as they waited for the professor to arrive, but inside he was trying to figure out how he would learn to fly on a broom in a few days when he hasn't even seen one up close.

"You're attention everyone! Please stand up," said a young man as he sauntered into the room, "I will be your Charms professor, Almerick Sawbridge."

The students greeted him as they rose from their seats, tucking away various materials they thought to entertain themselves with.

"Ah, but call me Professor Ricky. Professor Sawbridge was my father," he smiled brilliantly, setting his things on a desk. Harry took this time to inspect the man. He couldn't be older than twenty five, and he seemed very energetic as his body radiated with magic.

He smiled at everyone once again, and flicked his wand in a direction, and all the tables and chairs went towards that way, along with their things. He then gave his wand a twirl, and next to him a beaten wooden figure seemed to rise from the floor. "Now before we begin formal lessons, I must ask each of you to cast the most helpful charm you know at this wooden dummy I just conjured. If you must know, it is simply for me to diagnose how learned each of you are, so that I can set the class' pace accordingly. I will call your names, and you will step forward, brandish your wands and cast the spell you have chosen."

Harry went taut. If there was one thing he could wish for that he had more experience in, it was the practical application of magic. He had less than a month to absorb everything there was about the Wizarding World before going to Ombra, a school that, his grandfather had told him, had a very rigorous program. It was part of the reason why Isaac wanted his grandson to go to Hogwarts instead, because Hogwarts will be a much nicer pace for harry to get used to magic. But Harry was insistent, and he noticed how his grandfather was rather proud that Harry had been considered a candidate for a prestigious school.

Professor Ricky called the first student, a girl with brown hair and a nervous expression. He smiled encouragingly at her.

"Go ahead, then, Miss Corinth," he said, and he leaned on his desk with a pale hand. Come to think of it, he was all rather pale, and Harry noted how some of the girl students sighed at him.

The girl, Corinth, spun her wand in a lazy circle, an incantation leaving her lips. A moment later, a spell soared from her wand, and hit the dummy, which burst into flames. Harry's eyes widened as the fire ate it. He was going to have to cast a spell like that. He swallowed. The wooden figure, a splaying mass of torn pieces, reintegrated itself, and was whole in seconds.

"Fantastic!" was Professor Ricky's response, and he smiled once again, and the girl's nervous face turned into a gleeful one. The professor called another student, Sienna this time, and he was pleased to find that the girl was rather learned, when the wooden dummy shrank to a size of a seed.

Harry became more anxious as his name neared. He didn't know any complicated charms, and he was rather self-conscious as to what the other might think when his time came. He tightened his grip around his wand when Antonio animated the dummy to move the way he moved, making the rest of the students laugh as he mimicked a chimp.

The only spells he could remember where cleaning charms, when he insisted that he help Sassy clean the Manor. Granted, he caused more trouble than good cleaning magical artifacts he was unaccustomed to, yet he could do the spells properly.

Harry was both awed and stricken with nerves as different kinds of spells were used. One of them made the figure flash different colors, and another threw it across the room, while another duplicated the dummy into two, and then three. Harry could have used those spells, but he found it a trend that no one seemed to be repeating a spell over. He figured he would be embarrassed if he chose to do so, so he decided to stick firmly with using a cleaning charm when his turn arrived.

Once again, his last name Potter was skipped, making him think his name on the list was Wyllt-Potter, still. He was going to have to talk to Doctor Paracelsus about that later.

Harry found himself sagging in disappointment, as a spell from one of the students reduced the dummy to dust. He should have studied spells better, not just the ones that benefited him in the Manor. The students were practiced, and he found himself quickly classifying them as superior to him in skill. Maybe if he did go to the Dawn library before class, he could have run into a spell which would impress the Professor like the others did.

"Wyllt-Potter," Professor Ricky said, and he had a different smile on his face, just as encouraging as the others, but with a glint in the eyes that held understanding. Harry _Scourgified _the dummy. The spell hit, and grime on the dummy disappeared. It looked a good deal cleaner, and could have been a carving by an artist, after the stains and soot and dirt left it. It was silent for a while, and Harry stepped back. At least the spell worked, he said to himself as reassurance.

"Excellent, Harry," Professor Ricky grinned, and Harry, along with the others, were surprised when Harry was called by his first name. The professor wasn't inclined with that level of familiarity with everyone, but it seemed he was with Harry.

"This was a sculpture carved by Grinling Gibbons, a wizard and master of the craft. He gave this to the family as a symbol of his loyalty to the Light, back when the Sawbridges were highly involved in politics. It resists almost every charm in existence—in a way that it returns to its state prior to the casting of the charm—except the most harmless of cleaning charms, which of course Mr Wyllt Potter has graciously performed," he gave Harry a glance and a smile.

"Let this be a lesson to you, my students. In this Charms class, you will be taught prudence and creativity, as much as magic and theory. Charms encompass the majority of spells known and recorded in the Wizarding World's history. They are the most practical, convenient, and efficient of spells in getting things done. They are numerous, and oftentimes you could find a spell most suited for a job or task at hand. But despite that, a Charms wielder would always be lacking that specific knowledge needed to be efficient, and he will be known to adapt to situations, thinking of the best possible way of solving a problem, based on the knowledge he has. It is then when you will pass this class, when you have been fully educated in Charms in such a way that you don't have to know everything, but rather know enough to get things done," he finished what seemed to be a course description, and he sent the tables back towards the middle of the classroom, and he proceeded to teach basic theories of Charms.

Harry was even more interested with this class, despite the rather cold stares some of the students decided to look at him with. He couldn't shrug them off, and instead focused on the lesson more deeply. Sienna had nudged his side, praising him for his good judgment, and Antonio smiled, and that was enough for Harry.

Soon they were dismissed, and Harry was stuffing another set of carefully written notes into his bag. They were the last to leave, yet some students still caught Professor Ricky calling him.

"Mr Wyllt-Potter, if I could please talk to you about a matter," he said, in a serious enough tone that compelled Harry to stay, but just so that he didn't feel nervous, thinking he had made a mistake about something or the other.

"Take a seat," the professor said, and Harry took the nearest one to the professor's desk. The room was illuminated by high windows, and light reflected off the walls gloriously. Harry thought this wing must be the one with the more exposed roofs, letting more light into the rooms it contained.

The professor took one look at him and he was confused. There was distinct amusement in Professor Ricky's expression. "Mr Wyllt-Potter—Harry," he said.

"You're wand's barely been used. Your _Scourgify _wouldn't have cleaned the dummy thoroughly, if it wasn't already laden with preservation and enhancement charms in the first place," he said, smiling despite his gentle words. Soothing, in fact. Harry didn't feel quite so upset as he should have, and he only went partially rigid. "Tell me, when did you get your wand?"

Harry hesitated for a second, and then said in a small voice, "A week ago, sir."

Professor Ricky nodded in understanding. "Then you must be Muggleborn."

Harry shook his head. "No sir. My grandfather told me he and my dad were pureblood. So I guess that makes me a halfblood, because of my mother." Harry had no compunction in admitting that. He was proud of his parents, and how they died. His grandfather was honest with him, and taught him things that would most likely matter to the students his age, like blood status and magical power, and Harry had resigned himself to the fact that he might not be as noteworthy because of those Wizarding shortcomings.

"But surely, your grandfather has exposed you to tons of magic beforehand, and had tried them on a practice wand," the professor said, his eyes glinting in curiosity. He seemed to have come to the conclusion of his own, that Harry's parents and his grandfather were dead.

"I—"Harry did hesitate for longer this time, because he still didn't want other to know the whole story between his apparent lack of magical exposure.—my grandfather's a ghost, sir, when I met him a month ago. Before that, I was living with my Muggle relatives."

"You don't say …" was what the professor said, leaning back on his chair and thinking. He glanced at Harry, then, and smiled at him.

"I could see you thriving, Harry, with magic and knowledge," he said admiringly, and Harry swelled in pride. "You could have copied some of the spells the other students used, but you still used what I assumed was one of the few spells you know. That shows, to me, a great deal of self-acceptance of your limitations, and a silent courage of overcoming something out of your power. I was looking at you today, wondering why you were so nervous. To think, you've only been doing magic for a week! It's simply astounding. And you're an Ombran student. That must account for something, if the dome sees you as worthy."

Harry gazed at the professor, who was looking at one of the high windows as he thought. He liked this man, purely for the reason that he didn't seem to judge Harry on any of the things Harry had told him, like he had reconciled was the more likely thing to happen in that situation.

"Would you like me to tutor you, Harry?" Professor Ricky said eagerly. "On the weekends of course, and only if you want to. It wouldn't be a scheduled meeting—rather you could go to me during the weekends if you would like, and I would help you catch up on what must have been around five to seven years of magical exposure lost."

Harry actually smiled at the opportunity. Through this, Harry would be less inclined to be haphazard in his private studies, and the professor would help him learn everything a child his age would know about the Wizarding World, in a perfectly systematic manner.

"I'd be glad to take the offer, professor," Harry said, letting gratitude pour with his words. He found himself grinning sinerely for the first time he arrived at the school.

Professor Ricky clapped his hands together. "Perfect! We'll make a properly learned wizard child of you yet."

They decided on a window of time when the professor was available for the weekends, and Harry thanked him before setting off towards the library. He had told Antonio and Sienna to go ahead for lunch, but did not tell them that he wasn't following after them. He had books to read, and a library to peruse. He seemed to perk up at the idea that he would be privately tutored by a nice professor, so that he could actually stand a chance of surviving the school.

Almerick watched him go with a slight skip to his step, and he smiled to himself. He found it an obligation to teach Harry, who seemed so inexperienced when it came to magic. The boy would not survive Ombra's competitive nature any other way. There must have been a reason why the boy wasn't living with his grandfather's ghost before last month, when that could have been more suitable for him.

He would, through these private lessons, find out more about this interesting young lad. He would also talk to Evan later in the evening, and decide what would happen. Evan would most likely be interested in Harry as well, especially since Harry also had Dark Arts later in the day.

* * *

Harry was only half-glad that he had time to read in the library, because then he didn't get to each lunch, leaving him with an empty stomach as he arrived in the Light Arts classroom. He was surprised to find Calvin there, waiting for the professor along with the other students. Calvin had already noticed him with narrowed eyes as he entered the classroom, and Harry saw an empty seat next to him. He didn't hesitate, and was in a beeline for the seat. Calvin didn't look at him or talk to him, and Harry had a feeling that the boy would be like that for the majority of their time spent together.

Some students he recognized. Harry thought it was in passing the corridors, or at breakfast this morning, but then he realized some of the people in this class were from his Charms class with Professor Ricky. They were chatting with each other, when before Charms they didn't, and Harry was inclined to believe that they might have created friendships during the class. Harry tried to ask one of them about Charms, but the boy turned to him glared, and then responded curtly. Harry had no idea what provoked such a response, but he didn't have time to think on it long enough because the professor had arrived.

She was long and willowy, much more than Headmistress Laverne. Her blonde hair was incredibly light and silky-looking but thick and rich at the same time, and it flowed the same way as her movements did. Her ears were pointed, and here eyes were a deep sky blue.

"Good afternoon," she said in a musical voice. "I am Solona, an elf from the Germanic tribe of Light Elves. I will be teaching you the Arts associated with Light Magic." She dug her hand into one of the pockets of her robes and took out her wand. "Light Magic, to put it simply, is the exercising of magic in manners concerning Light ways, that is, ways that do not rob the intended target of its will, integrity or freedom." She waved her wand, and a bouquet of flowers sprouted from it. Harry was reminded of the magicians he knew and watched in the telly back when he knew nothing of wizardry. "Spells such as this, with no positive or negative effects on the caster, or any other individual, living thing, or object, are considered neutral. However, the intent of the caster, and his intended use for the spell is what will ultimately define a spell as Light or Dark. Can anyone tell me how a harmless spell such as this could be Dark?"

Harry saw Calvin raise his hand in the corner of his eye. Solona nodded to him. "The caster could conjure flowers that may seem harmless, but could give someone an allergic reaction."

"That is a valid answer, Mr …" she prompted.

"Balsagoth," Calvin replied, in a tone that was proud of the name. Solona smiled at him.

"Yes. That would be two privilege points to Horologium," Solona said, after checking some papers on her desk.

She continued with her lesson on defining Light Magic. Harry leaned towards Calvin to whisper, "What does she mean by privilege points?"

Calvin gave him a look torn between irritation and disbelief that Harry would be talking to him. "If you listened to Doctor Paracelsus, Potter," he hissed, "instead of prattling on with Exupery about which classes to take, then you would have registered him saying that privilege points are what would give us special rights around the school."

"Special rights such as?" Harry had to ask. He had to admit that he was not listening to the professor when he told them of the other extra information they should know about Ombra.

"Such as access to more restricted parts of the libraries," Calvin whispered with annoyance. "Now stop talking to me. I'm trying to listen to the professor."

Harry obeyed him and promptly shut up, rapidly jotting down notes.

"To make matters clear," she said, her voice clear and gentle, "what separates Light Magic from its Dark counterpart is purely the aim or purpose of the wizard in casting the spell. A Severing Curse is called a curse because of its innately harmful nature as a spell. One poorly aimed _Diffindo _could segment an arm cleanly. However, if the caster's intended purpose is to sever a thick rope, or cut through a steel chain to release a trapped person, then it could be classified as Light."

One student raised her hand, and Solona entertained her. "What if the rope or chain was keeping, say, a werewolf tied down, preventing him from biting nearby children?"

Solona nodded, calling her by her name, Ms Collins. Harry thought the professor must have known her prior to the class. "An excellent question. Two privilege points to Eridanus."

"What then, would be the basis of a spell's Lightness or Darkness, or neutrality? In a case such as the one Ms Collins has presented, the spell's basis would be its direct intended purpose for being cast, which is to say, to sever the restraints of the werewolf, not its indirect consequence of unleashing a beast onto defenseless children."

"But a spell such as the Severing Curse has multiple purposes with many different direct and indirect intentions for being cast. It would be immoral to classify it immediately as a Light spell in that situation, when clearly it led to the jeopardizing of the children's physical, mental and emotional integrity." She gave the class a piercing look, lingering on a few students, even on Harry and Calvin. "In this class, then, we will all be tasked to exercise magic with a naturally Light purpose, or at the very least, magic which leans towards more Light purposes than Dark. In this sense, Light Arts, Charms and Dark Arts form the Unified Intermagical Spectrum, which classifies every kind of magic. More of that would be discussed in your Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic class."

She then proceeded to branch out from her formal definition of Light Magic, to actually classifying the kinds of Light magic there is, such as those that are naturally positive such as Medimagic and Augmentations, and those which, technically speaking, could be considered Light or Dark, such as disinfecting and counterpoison spells.

Soon, Harry had a bunch of new notes, all carefully scribbled with his quill, and they were dismissed from class, with an assignment which asked them to list ten types of magic that could be Light or Dark, depending on the caster's intention. Harry was going to talk to Calvin about how he would approach the given work, but the boy had already put his belongings into his bag and rushed off to go who-knows-where.

Harry sighed, wondering if Calvin would ever be less hostile towards him. He walked through the halls in what he assumed was the direction of their dormitories, where he was planning to stay for a while before going to his next class. He was starving, but he didn't know where he could get food in the middle of the afternoon. He knew the kitchens existed, but he would rather not risk getting lost in Ombra castle.

"Harry! Look out!" someone called from behind him, and he recognized the voice as Sienna, not long before he was hit by a spell, which sent him toppling towards the wall in intense pain. He couldn't feel his left shoulder joint—or rather, he couldn't move his shoulder because he was in so much pain that it wouldn't register past his normal threshold.

His eyes stung with tears, and fear coiled around his bones like white hot fire, and he blanked out.


	4. Taking Toll

**Notes: WARNING! **Mentions of slash between adults. Graphic.

**Chapter 3:** Taking Toll

Harry woke to semi-darkness, unaware of where he was and what had happened. Next thing he knew, spells were coming his way, and his heart picked up.

"No need to panic, Mr Wyllt. I'm merely using diagnostic spells," a plump woman said, her wand twisting in front of her as she did. Harry was aware of a dull throbbing in his left shoulder.

"Where—where am I?" he asked, his throat dry from sleep.

"Why, you're in the healer's sanctum, my dear," she said. "I'm Healer Thisbe, head mediwitch of this school."

Harry looked around. He felt a little apprehensive of all the white linens and white dividers hanging around the place. Everything was so sterile, and somehow Harry didn't like it. He was still in his robes, however, and that brought some comfort.

"Before you ask the specifics, young Wyllt," she started, right as she snapped her wand back to her body, "your Dark Arts professor dropped by and gave you a reading list and your class' homework." She pointed over to the desk, where a piece of parchment sat. "You were excused for the day, seeing as you were unconscious, and you took a rather large arrow to the shoulder."

"W—what?" he cried, and then winced in pain as he jostled his bandaged shoulder.

"An arrow, dear," she said, pushing a potion near his mouth, clucking at his actions. "Pay attention when I'm talking to you. Oh, and drink that. It will make you feel better."

Harry glanced at the potion suspiciously. "Why should I, it looks very icky—"

"Because that would mend the rest of the broken cartilage. Now, down the potion—yes, that's it."

Harry did, and grimaced after. "It tastes like vomit." He never wanted to down a potion like that again. If any of the potions were like that, then he swears never to drink any of them ever.

"The nastier the medicine, the better the effects," she said, winking. She then looked at a clipboard she was holding, her face looking more serious as she nodded to herself.

"Mr Wyllt, the potion and the treatment would cost you thirty privilege points, but it seems you lack the necessary payment ..." she looked at him with a pitying expression, and Harry ducked his head.

"But I—it's the first day of class, and ... I haven't been performing well," he said meekly, wringing the thin hospital blanket in his hands.

She placed a hand on his head and rubbed it slowly. Harry found himself leaning into it a bit. "My dear, I can't really help you at this moment, but unless you get those thirty points before the next week ends, I'm afraid you're going to have to pack your things and leave the school."

Harry tensed, his eyes flicking towards Healer Thisbe instantly. "But—why? I haven't done anything!" He recoiled immediately and seemed to berate himself for crying out at a school authority. Healer Thisbe stared at his large green eyes for a moment, and then sighed.

"Rules are rules, Mr Wyllt. The privilege points are there to promote hard work and responsibility. If you do nothing, you get nothing in return. That is the trial that is Ombran school life. The only way to succeed and enjoy the benefits of this school is to work hard."

She had a far-off look for a second, and then smiled at him sadly. "Medical care was supposed to be outside the privilege pact, but some old coot argued that one has to strive for everything, even his or her rights ..."

"Now off you go, Mr Wyllt!" she said as cheerfully as she could muster, which was a little short of fake.

"Go?" he said, flabbergasted. "But I've been injured. And—and someone shot an arrow at me!"

The healer shrugged noncommittally. "Doctor Paracelsus is already on the case, dear. But no leads so far. It's been rather expected by the staff, though. Your name's very controversial. As for your wound, the potion you drank will make you better in no time."

When Harry only stared at her, she forced her off the gurney, clucking about ungrateful little brats and arrow wounds on the first day, and sent Harry off. There was still pain in Harry's side, but he found he could easily ignore pain, to his astonishment. He gathered his bag and the parchment from his Dark Arts professor named Rosier, then left the wing.

He still didn't know what exactly his name meant. He was sure his grandfather didn't leave anything out when he was telling him of his lineage. Something this 'controversial', as Healer Thisbe put it, must have had some significance, enough to be mentioned by his grandfather. Although, Harry thought, his grandfather did try to cram as much knowledge into him as possible. Harry still remembered the headaches that had caused, and the sleepless nights, but Harry still wished he had had more time, and more information about the wizarding world crammed into him. And maybe, more stuff about him as well.

He was lost for a while, but found his way easily back to the dormitories when he ran across the Gathering Hall. He was, of course, terrified that someone fired an arrow at him, and his memory was quite hazy ... but, he did remember one thing, and that was hearing Sienna warn him before he got shot.

A tap of his wand—with some effort, since his left hand was his wand hand— and the wooden door with the pendulum clock let him in. It was nighttime, and the fireplace was lit, and around it, mulling about in the furniture were his journeymen. Marie turned her eyes to him immediately, Calvin's eyes narrowed, and Antonio jumped off his seat and ran over to him immediately, checking to see if he was OK.

"Yes, I reckon I'm going to be fine ..." He found Sienna sitting by the fire, and Doctor Paracelsus was on a couch, staring at him. He noticed the doctor heave a sigh.

"Well, that's a relief. I wouldn't have handled it well if you died," he said simply. Sienna looked like she would bust out in tears, and Antonio's head snapped towards his direction, terrified. Calvin and Marie seemed unfazed, but Harry didn't notice any of them. He was staring at Sienna, who was avoiding his eyes and keeping quiet.

"So ... who shot the arrow at me?" Harry asked quietly, the question feeling odd on his tongue. It was such a ludicrous question to ask, yet he felt like he needed to get used to statements like that, if he was to stay in Ombra.

"Sad to say, the arrow was conjured by magic, and we can't trace it," Paracelsus said, with a hint of regret. Harry nodded stiffly. The fear was back, but he stamped it down. It was Sienna's cue to speak, but she remained deathly silent.

Paracelsus stood up and made for the door, his face resolute as he rubbed Harry's head. "I'm bringing this to the professors, Mr Potter, don't you worry. And please, a word of caution, try learning quick defensive spells. Ombra is a dangerous place."

With those vague words he left, and everyone in the room was eerily silent, that is, until Calvin announced that he was going to bed, and Antonio prattled on about his wound, and working hard towards finding out who cast the spell. Sienna quickly went to bed, taking Marie with her, and Harry thought he was going to have to corner her tomorrow to get some answers.

That night, Harry took a while before he succumbed to sleep. He was thinking of how he was going to collect thirty privilege points before the week after ends, when he had the magical stock knowledge of a five year old. On top of that, he had to learn more defensive spells, lest he wanted more sharp things lodged at him. When he finally closed his eyes, Harry was plagued with unpleasant dreams, of him running as arrows flew towards him and his using cleaning charms on it, of Sienna just standing there, quietly crying, Marie offering her book as a shield, Antonio pinning him down in place, Calvin laughing evilly, dark red eyes, and a woman's hollow, echoing sobs.

* * *

The next day, Harry's wound didn't go unnoticed, as he made his way to breakfast. The Gathering hall was noisy with students chatting, throwing him wary glances, telling stories of their first day, and generally being lively in the process. Harry felt their eyes like spiders, and he tried to shake them off, but the feeling lingered.

"—can't wait to owl my dad—he's been trying to prove Paracelsus' existence for years—"

"—Glass men today, oh I hope mine looks cute—"

"I hope mine's brutal enough to give your cute glass man a right shove—"

"—got shot with an arrow! Nobody would admit to doing it, though. Look at him, he looks even tinier with bandages like that—"

"—my journeymen said it was a spear, not an arrow—"

"—must be an attention seeker. There's no way the professors would allow an injury on the first day—"

But Harry had tuned them out already, opting instead to try and swallow his breakfast. From time to time Antonio glanced at him worriedly, and asked if he was doing good, and Harry would nod, even though he feels retched and small with all the attention. Marie would force him to eat, lest he collapsed during the day and caused even more of a commotion, and Calvin would sneer, and read a few parchments to himself. Sienna was not at breakfast, and it made Harry all the more suspicious as to her involvement.

They stood not long after that, making their way towards their first class, which they all had together.

"You better stop it with your moping, Potter. You're a disgrace," Calvin muttered, and Antonio threw him a dirty look. Marie looked disapproving but said nothing else. Harry had flinched, and then tried to look as normal as possible. It didn't quite work, and he was still in low spirits.

Before long, Harry, being subconsciously guided by the others, went to the first Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic class, or as Antonio put it, Basic Theories. Sienna wasn't there either, which further darkened Harry's mood. Antonio asked them where she might be, but they all drew blanks. Marie really didn't know, and Calvin simply didn't care. Antonio pouted then, and tried to get Harry to cheer up.

The room was abuzz with chatter, and Harry had known since this morning why that was; they were supposed to be getting their glass men and women today, and the professor was supposed to explain to them what they were.

Soon, a skinny man with a sour expression stormed in, and barked for everyone to sit down.

"I'm Beaumont Marjoribanks. No greetings or pleasantries necessary," he said gruffly. The class immediately felt dread of this man, falling eerily silent.

"This is Basic Theories of Every Kind of Magic. I expect you've done some reading, since I expect no slackers in this class. Do not expect any privilege points from me, for I only give them to students who have more than proven their competence in theoretical work."

"We'll have a period today to make your glass men," he said, levitating some lumps of molten rock from a cabinet in the back of the room. "You are to place your palms a few inches away from the rocks, and focus your magic. I require everyone to have their glass men by the time classes end. For those who aren't here, tell them to come see me after class for their rocks. The lot would cost them five privilege points for their lackwit absence."

The rocks settled onto their desks, and at first no one quite knew how to get along with it, until Professor Marjoribanks barked at them again, and they scrambled to put their palms on them. The rocks were half-molten and glistening with fire, and some of the students were getting burns, but none of them were deterred, overcome with excitement at getting the little creatures.

Soon, however, glass men started popping from where the rocks were, and the professor started explaining the origin of glass men. He said that Ombra had no place for house elves, since Ombrans didn't like the idea of enslaving them, and paying them with such little wage, as was wont of the little creatures. Instead, they created servants out of their own magic and crystal, and formed glass men.

* * *

"Er, Marie?" Harry said as they were exiting class. He was trying to get Arthur into his pocket, but was failing miserably. The little man was energetic and righteous, and Harry quickly developed a soft spot for him.

Marie glanced at him, and then at his glass man, who was staring over Harry's shoulder, at Calvin's glass man, Howell. Howell was meek and servile, and Calvin was wasting no time abusing his power over the little man.

"Could you tell me more about privilege points? Like how they can be earned and stuff," Harry said, looking hopelessly at his creation.

Marie looked thoughtful for a second. "More than what Paracelsus already told us? You really weren't listening that day, were you?" Her voice was more affectionate than condescending, and Harry promptly flushed in embarrassment. On her shoulder, Sophia tinkled as she giggled, and Marie shushed her quietly.

They started to walk, Arthur struggling in Harry's hands. "Privilege points," Marie started, "can be earned in three ways. First of course, is by doing well in class. Participating, such as asking the right questions or giving the right answers, and also getting top marks in exams and grades."

She took out a book and started skimming through it, but Harry noticed she was paying attention to both what she was saying and what she was reading. Where she stopped the page, Sophia left a little smudge at the tip, like a little bookmark. "The second is by running errands for the professors. But that won't come till much later in Ombra. Only fourth years and above can do that, when they can leave Ombran grounds without supervision. Apprentices make a load of privilege points abusing their right to demand points for their work."

She glanced at him, and tried to figure out the expression he was making. "The third, and only viable course for you from this point, is to run errands or work for higher years. However, the professors only allow fourth years and up to give privilege points to others, so I can't really give you mine."

"How do you know I need the points?" Harry asked, very much awed at how Marie figured it out.

Marie shrugged. "It's pretty easy. You were asking. I figured you needed them. But more sensibly, you've been healed in the healer's sanctum, and that costs something. And for a firstie to go there on his first few weeks—it's usually a ticket home."

Harry looked nervous, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. "I need it by the end of next week, or else I'm gonna be kicked."

They arrived at the Gathering Hall, and Marie took one look at Harry, feeling sympathy. "Don't worry. I think I know a few students who apprentice for my sister, I'm sure we can get one of them to have you do some errands."

At that Harry considerably brightened, and Marie looked surprised for a second, before settling her expression into a smile. Arthur looked sulky in his hands, and Harry chuckled, comforting the little man. It seemed he wanted to have a little chat with Howell.

After talking about Professor Valendia's apprentices, Harry waved Marie goodbye, with the girl promising to talk to one of them in hopes of settling an arrangement. With higher spirits, Harry made his way to the Dawn Library to finally get some reading done.

Calvin was annoyed at how quickly news spread in the school. Everyone seemed to be going on nonstop about Potter's injury, and his visit to the healer's sanctum. Apparently, it costs privilege points to avail oneself for treatment, and Potter, the sot, with no points at all, seemed to be in danger of being sent off forever.

Well, that's good, Calvin thought, that would finally get him out of my dormitories. Now if I could only get rid of that jumpy bufoon Exupery ...

His thoughts were detracted as his Charms professor dismissed them. It was his only class without any of his journeymen, and he quite liked it, especially since it was late in the afternoon. Sometimes he found even Marie infuriating during Transfigurations, when she wouldn't raise her hand until she was certain no one knew the answer, and would get all the more privilege points for it.

Astoundingly, the girl had twenty three points under her belt, while Calvin had only seventeen. He was trying to keep up by reciting in Charms, but still came up short. He wondered what he could do with twenty points, when he stumbled upon a door, slightly ajar, opening into a deserted classroom. Calvin had heard some shuffling inside, and thought to investigate. What he saw shocked him, and slightly disturbed him.

It was their Transfigurations teacher, Professor Rosier, and he seemed to be entangled in a throe of passion with another man. Calvin held a breath and hoped he wouldn't be noticed, his mind screaming at the perversion of the kissing, and his spying on them.

"Ricky ..." muttered Rosier, who was smattering the man—Ricky's neck, with hungry kisses. "You should go already, else I'd take you again."

The other man moaned, and grabbed a fistful of Rosier's dark hair. "I—if you'd just stop molesting my neck like that, I'd give it a thought ..."

There was something hungry with the way the two men writhed against each other, and Calvin was growing more uncomfortable by the second.

And then Rosier stopped—his unwillingness evident on his face—and stepped back.

Ricky whined low. "Why'd you actually stop? I was joking."

Calvin knew why, or at least he thought he did. This Ricky had fangs protruding behind his upper lip. A vampire, he thought with increasing dread. There's a vampire in the school.

"Because your hunger is showing," Rosier said, tapping his lips. Ricky seemed to have understood, by the way he ran his own fingers along his sharp canines.

"I can still last a day or two," Ricky complained, then tried to seduce Calvin's professor again. "Don't you want me?" he said playfully.

Calvin's eyebrows raised when Professor Rosier rolled his eyes. "You know I do, Almerick. But you're starving. Think of the children. And me. You might bite me again, and then you'll get sick from my cursed blood. You were gone longer then, longer than when you make your trips to feed."

Almerick tried to look petulant. "But we haven't done it in a while."

Rosier wrapped his hands around Almerick's waist and rolled their hips together. Calvin blushed hotly, then willed his face to cool. Vampires might detect sudden rush of blood from this close a proximity. "We did it four hours ago, in a broom closet next to a first year Arithmancy class. Imagine the horror your little howls left the students with."

Calvin tried not to think of what "it" was. Instead he wondered if that was Marie's class, and if she heard anything. Calvin surprised himself by thinking if Marie was disturbed.

"But I'll miss you," Ricky muttered. Calvin felt half-sympathy, half-disgust, deciding not to contemplate on his mixed emotions at the moment.

Rosier sighed. "No more buts, my love. You're always like this when you leave to feed."

"And you always tease me before I leave, too," Ricky said, rubbing Rosier's hair. "It keeps my blood up so high I usually overdrink myself."

"Your blood's frozen in your veins, love."

"Oh you get my point," he said, kissing the man again. Calvin felt it safe to assume that these two were lovers. A vampire and his professor ... He still couldn't believe it. It was amazing how no student has gotten hurt from this Almerick. It was also quite mad and reckless of Headmaster Laverne. How does he get out of Ombra to feed on blood?

"Well, it always assures me that I get to experience the best, sinfully-carnal sex, whenever you come back," Rosier said cheekily.

"You trollop, you."

And that was when Calvin stepped back and ran, frustrated at his embarrassment, and at his bloody professor and his bloody vampire lover.

* * *

"Have you been getting any sleep, Harry?" Antonio asked in between drinking mango juice. It was breakfast once again, and Harry was rumpled.

Harry shook his head, staring at his porridge dazedly. Antonio continued to stare at him, and pushed on.

"Hey Harry, if you have the energy, maybe we could go fly on brooms next week," he said tentatively. "I could have my brother owl my broom. It would be loads of fun, I think ... What do you say?"

Harry jumped when Marie dropped a large tome on the table, causing some of the dishes and silverware to clatter. "I'm sorry, what was that?" he said, shaking his head to clear it. He had studied a lot last night, even after leaving the library and going to History and Transfigurations, reading well into the dark when he found that he couldn't close his eyes. And of course, there was the essay Professor Rosier wanted done, which was basically like Lady Solona's homework of identifying spells that could be dark, with the proper intention.

On top of all that, his wound still refused to be painless, and getting painkilling potions from the sanctum would only cost him more points than he had, which was, sad to say, still none. So he spent some time looking for a way to brew them himself, and sent Arthur off to look for ingredients in the forest. He couldn't wait for his tutoring session with Professor Sawbridge, so they could fill in the gaps Harry's Muggle upbringing made.

That morning, Harry woke, sleeping for only a broken hour, with Arthur sleeping next to him. He found the ingredients sitting on his desk, but saw that they were more for healing cuts than painkilling. Still they might prove useful, and Harry blearily kept them in jars.

Antonio patiently repeated his proposition, and Harry silently agreed to it, promising to ride on a broom with Antonio the next week. It was another thing to do in his list, and Harry was disappointed in himself for feeling so tired, when everyone else seemed to be getting on swimmingly.

Marie put some food on her plate for a while, and then addressed Harry. "I talked to this boy. His name is Giles Shmidt. He says he need help with cleaning cauldrons for his Potions mastery, and he'd be glad to give you points. He says he'll meet you Monday morning, in the courtyard."

She seemed to look through the Gathering Hall, and then found what she was looking for. "There—that tall fellow with auburn hair."

Harry followed her gaze, and saw him. He was quite tall and bulky, but he seemed nice enough as he talked to some friends.

"Thank you," Harry said tiredly, gratefully. Marie nodded to him, then promptly ate.

They separated for classes, Marie going to Runes and Glyphs, Antonio to Battle Magic, and Harry to Dark Arts. It was then that at one corridor, Harry heard some scuffle. Harry felt his magic thrum.

It was Sienna, backed against a wall by two boys and a girl. The tallest boy, the one with a cat's eye and a permanently scowling expression, had a wand digging against Sienna's pale throat. Sienna's lip was bleeding. And she looked defiant yet terrified. On the floor was her glass woman, lying helpless, her leg broken from her body.

Harry felt sudden anger, and approached them.

"Your father wants you back, Cinderwell," the boy said arrogantly, "he wants that dirty mouth of yours removed of teeth."

"Stay away from her," Harry muttered, stopping in front of them and brandishing his wand. He didn't know what he was going to do with it, but he knew some defensive spells now, weak as though they were. Sienna looked mortified to see him, and the other laughed.

"Oh look, Julius, it's the poor little Wyllt boy with the arrow wound," the girl said, and they snickered.

"Come to beg for some privilege points? I heard you'd be thrown off school in a week," the other boy taunted.

Harry swished his wand, and imaginary ants crawled on the tallest boy's arms, causing him to drop his wand. The boy glared at him and picked his wand up immediately, but Sienna had already gone between them.

"Leave him alone. He has nothing to do with this," she said angrily. There were tears in her eyes, but Harry had never seen them so intense and fiery.

"Oh, he has everything to do with this," he said scathingly, an incantation next to go out of his lips. Sienna was about to cover herself, but Harry had already side-stepped to block whatever spell it was.

Harry had felt magic rush through the corridor, the unusual torrent of energy always sweeping around the school, and Harry thought it moved with him, and went in accord with what his mind wanted to happen, and the three wizards were thrown back, a few feet from where they were standing. Harry was surprised. Did he just do that?

"You'll pay for that, Wyllt," the boy, Julius spat, and quickly made to stand up, but the girl pulled him back and they ran, just as a tall man with dark hair came through the other side of the corridor.

"What's going on?" the man said, staring quite curiously at Harry and Sienna both.

Harry was at a loss for words, so it was Sienna who spoke, gathering her broken glass woman in her hands as she sniffled.

"Harry, sir, he saved me from some—students," she said quietly, glancing at Harry as she blushed. Harry tentatively smiled at her, and then looked at her glass woman sadly. It was tinkling. And crying out pink tears.

"Harry Potter," the man said, his gaze intensifying. He nodded. "Do you have privilege points for those cuts, Ms ..." he trailed off.

"Cinderwell, sir. And yes I do, but, not for all of them ..." The man took out his wand and whisper a stronger repairing spell, mending the little glass woman's leg back to her body. Sienna looked at him, half with admiration and half with gratitude.

"I can brew a potion, sir. For her cuts," he said, a bit more confidently than he suspected he could muster. He had a cauldron, stirring, cutting and mashing equipment, a lamp, and the necessary ingredients from when Arthur went to the forest.

"Oh? But potions aren't until second year. Where would you get such brewing knowledge?" the man asked casually, his eyes glinting at them as he approached.

Harry shrugged. "I could probably brew it, with the right instructions," he said.

"Well, let's hope that you could, Mr Potter. A face as glorious as Ms Cinderwell's needs to be kept flawless," he said. At the casually thrown compliment, Sienna flushed red.

Harry nodded, feeling his exhaustion come back to him. For some reason, the magic surging through the castle took energy from him, and he suddenly wanted to sleep. But he still had a class to get to ... "If you don't mind professor, I'm late for my Dark Arts class—" he said, then stopped, glancing at Sienna as she gave him an estranged look.

"Oh, that won't be trouble, Mr Potter," the man said, flashing his teeth in a smile. "I'm your Dark Arts professor, Evan Rosier."

* * *

"It was very interesting," Evan mused, a few minutes after release. They were in Almerick's quarters after the vampire had returned, and just as expected, Ricky spared no time getting Evan out of his clothes and into his bed for some rough sex. It was all very randomly choreographed, with Ricky at first doing virtually nothing as Evan had his tongue all over him, licking at every expanse of bare flesh without a hint of trepidation, and then slowly responding, as if Evan needed to earn his due.

Everything had been familiar with these two—the secret touches that drove and melted the other man, the exact way each wanted their cocks sucked, the right speed of thrusts as each man had a go at the other's arse. It was no wonder they had reached release a bit early, with Almerick spurting rather messily on his ribs and Evan quivering in his own orgasm inside the vampire's arse. Too early, in fact, that they had to do it again, teasing and nipping and rubbing until they were hard and flushed and wanting for more.

"Interesting? Is that what sex with you leads to, these days? Interesting?" Ricky complained, but smiled all the same. He was lazily running a hand through Evan's fine black hair, noting, at one point, how perfect they might have looked, tangled in sheets.

"Not the sex, love," he said airily, "the boy. That Potter boy."

Ricky emitted a small gasp of outrage. "You were thinking of him while doing me? That's an abomination!"

Evan flicked his nose. "Not what I meant, you melodramatic tool. Remember Voldemort?"

Ricky closed his eyes and dug his face right into the crook in Evan's neck. "I suppose. He was the snake man, was he not?"

"More or less. And I used to work for him. But now he's supposedly dead."

"I don't see how this led to your penchant for putting eleven year olds' heads over mine while having sex," Ricky muttered blearily.

"Prat," Evan said affectionately, running a hand down Ricky's back, which the vampire simply loved as he leaned towards it. "It was that boy who killed him, Rick. When he was a mere babe."

"Really?" Ricky said, without really being interested, save for the small, perfectly loving moment they were having. He opened one eye. "Harry Wyllt?"

"Yeees," Evan said, staring at the blond's stormy blue eye. "And I used to doubt his power then, until I met him two days ago. I felt it, Rick. His core just rippled out of him and slingshotted Ombra's roaming magic at some bullies. That name of his is another enigma. He used to be Harry Potter alone. To have the school recognize him as a Wyllt is almost certainly dangerous for him." He knew the many fanatics in Ombra, brewing slowly at the appearance of another student claiming Wyllt ancestry.

Ricky leaned on his elbow. "I'm tutoring him tomorrow morning. He has, apparently, only a month's worth of knowledge regarding the wizarding world. If he's so powerful, why has he been raised by Muggles only until a month ago?"

Evan's eyes glinted. Ricky was very much familiar with it. It was how Evan got when something piqued his interest.

"That, we should find out. He has extraordinary potential, and we can't let it waste in this backwater wizarding world of ours."

* * *

It was Monday. Harry was in the courtyard, still tired to the bone with the studying. It was a blessing that Monday also had no classes, so he had more time to study and do his errands. Professor Ricky was a huge help with wizarding culture and niceties, teaching him the obvious and the subtle ways wizards interacted with each other on a daily basis. And it was nice how the professor didn't comment on his ignorance, unlike Calvin and some of his other classmates who were starting to catch onto his upbringing.

"Harry Wyllt," said someone from behind him, and Harry turned to see Giles Schmidt, holding a sack of something.

"Hullo," he said. "Marie said you could help me with a problem I'm having with privilege points."

Giles nodded, flicking his hair from his face. "I need some cauldrons cleaned," he said despairingly. "Could you assist me? I'll give you thirty privilege points if you could. It's just that I have to run some errands for my Potions thesis."

Harry nodded, smiling. Just enough points to save him. "I will. Is that the lot of it behind your back?"

"Er .." Giles said, before spilling the contents into the courtyard. It was filled with eighty or so cauldrons, shrunken down to the size of muffins. When they touched the cobblestones they grew, and reverted back to their original sizes. Harry gaped at the enormous pile.

"Before you ask, that kind of work really is worth thirty points," Giles said apologetically. Harry realized this task would take most of the day to finish.

"I'll ... do my best," he said, confidence wavering.

"I'm sure you will," Giles said. "Well, I'm off. I'll be back later this afternoon."

"All right," was all Harry said as Giles waved at him goodbye.

Harry sighed and stretched his shoulders, before getting some cleaning tools from a nearby broom closet and setting off to work.

* * *

Willas was in an alcove, looking out from a stained window at the sprawling forests of Ombra. It was another boring year with his boring journeymen, and he wanted to do something a little more blood-letting. It was all he could do not to 'accidentally' kill someone again, for Merlin knew the staff's already suspicious of him. Instead he tried to plot on how to make things more interesting at Ombra, by staring out into the forest and playing with his cap.

He knew how counterproductive it was, so he leapt off the ledge he was on and walked through the halls while whistling a tune, stopping near one of the balconies where a small crowd had gathered.

"What did you tell him?" a fourth year demanded, snickering as he did, along with the others. The redhead looked proud of himself, and Willas' eyes narrowed.

"I told him it was for my Potions thesis, and he believed it!" he exclaimed, cackling afterwards.

"How ignorant. He doesn't even know that's all of the fourth years' cauldrons!" they all laughed, looking down at the courtyard.

"Why, he's just another Wyllt pretender, isn't he?" said one of them.

"Yeah, seems he is," said another. Willas' curiosity got the better of him. He went over to a different window to see what was happening. Down at the courtyard was a little boy, a firstie, toiling over a bunch of cauldrons. He had some bleach and steel wool, a basin and some cloths, but surely that wasn't enough to clean the whole pile of cauldrons behind him.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" someone said as Harry tried to scrub a stubborn stain off a brass cauldron. Harry looked towards the source of the happy voice and found a young man with dark hair and a cap, his school shirt rumpled and half-tucked. Harry was immediately wary of the man.

"It could be worse," Harry said tentatively, eyeing the boy while scrubbing his third cauldron. By then his arm was quite sore, and his shoulder wound was pulsating, but he paid it no mind.

The boy stared at him doing his work, which disconcerted Harry, and then smiled. "Would you like me to help? You know, there are certain cleaning charms that could buff out the toughest cauldron stains faster than you could say Scourgify."

"I could handle it alone just fine," Harry huffed as he scrubbed more vigorously. "I might lose points for having help. But thanks anyway ..." Harry prompted,

"Willas," The boy sighed. "Look, you're being played for a fool."

Harry looked up at him, and then back at the cauldron. "If it gets me the points to stay, I'll do it without complaint."

* * *

"I don't think you understand," Willas started, but wyllt just scrubbed industriously, paying him no mind. Willas gaped disbelievingly at Wyllt for a second, then glared at the balcony, where the cruel students were, unaware that he was conversing with Harry in one of the arches.

"_Macula Evanesca_," he cast, and the cauldrons swirled in a torrent of magic, before turning spotlessly clean. Wyllt gaped at the shiny cauldrons, and then at Willas.

"That was amazing—I mean, you didn't have to do that," Harry said meekly. "And what if I don't get thirty points for not cleaning it alone?"

Willas sighed, then stepped out of the shadows. He looked up towards the balcony and waved at the students there, sending them a cold, hard glare. The students disbanded and went somewhere else.

"What was that? Who were they?" Wyllt asked. Willas shook his head hopelessly. Was Wyllt confused at being watched while he cleaned?

"I'll give you the thirty points you need, Wyllt," Willas said, and Harry's eyes brightened.

"You'd do that? Why? Would you like me to do something for you?" Harry's eyes were wide and eager, and Willas was tempted to take him up on that offer for a second, then decided against it. Wyllt's large eyes and messy dark hair, his thin and small stature and his pale skin made him look beautiful. Willas was almost reminded of Diana, but he stamped those memories back into the subconscious recesses of his mind.

"No need, little Wyllt," he said, walking back into the castle, but Harry had followed him and was unfurling his sleeves back. "Just stay out of trouble."

"Harry. You can call me Harry," he said, and smiled at him. Willas' lips curled into a tiny smile despite himself. The boy was too cute. "But really, why did you clean all of those? Now I'll have sixty points when Giles comes back—"

"Look, Harry," Willas stopped and blocked Harry so that he would listen to him. "That scum Schmidt decieved you. He wasn't going to give you those points. In fact, he wasn't going to give you anything. He was just screwing with you, and taking advantage of your innocence."

He pointed to the neat pile of cauldrons they left in the courtyard. "I should have made those cauldrons melt. But that would only provoke them even more. Those were the fourth years' cauldrons, not some project for Schmidt's so-called Potions thesis."

"I don't understand," Harry said quietly. "Why would they do that?"

"Because they think you've decieved the school somehow, and faked your name."

"Harry Potter?" Hary asked confusedly.

"Wyllt, Harry. Wyllt," Willas said, and then turned and left, leaving Harry to his muddled thoughts. Who was this person Willas, and why were people out to get him in some way?


	5. Wyllt

**Chapter 4: **Wyllt

There were a lot more to classes, Harry had found out, when a week of nothing but magic of all sorts was thrown his way. Every day from Tuesday to Friday, Harry, along with his classmates, studied the course of magic's history, from the time the god Prometheus brought fire to the humans, up to the formulation of the grand theories in Egypt and China.

He also had Basic Theories four times a week, where after the glass-man-making class, Professor Marjoribanks threw theories at them left and right. Harry had wondered why he couldn't look for a spell to eliminate sleep, but now he knew too well with the professor's incessant drills. It all came down to the theory called Physiological Needs Theory, which, incredibly enough also explained why magic couldn't stunt growth and development, can't eliminate the need to breathe (though magic can supply a person air to breathe) and so much more. Harry was frankly beginning to hate the word theory, but despite that, he read through the nights and memorized the implications of each magical rule.

There was also Transfigurations, a class he had Wednesdays and Fridays with Marie and Sienna. Harry seemed quite adept in the class, to general astonishment, never failing to transfigure something or other into another object. Harry couldn't quite imagine his glee when he was the first to turn a pigmy puff into a round marble. Professor Toothill never stopped lauding him.

It was in this class where he and Sienna seemed to grow closer. He had given her the healing potion that he had brewed nicely, much to the surprise of Sienna. The little blonde girl thanked him properly, for the potion and for sticking up for her in the halls, and promised to work with him in regards to their common subjects. Harry smiled then, and said that he didn't mind the company at all when he studied, but warned her that he was a bore when buried in a book. Sienna chuckled while also promising to make their study periods more exciting, to Harry's terror. Harry, haf-afraid to break the amiable exchange, didn't ask about the boy Julius and his friends.

Marie, pouncing on the topic at hand, asked him what sorts of books he liked to read.

There was, of course, the usual artful dodging that Harry did. Careful not to reveal much about what he actually knew about the wizarding world, which was to say, insufficient for an Ombran student, he resorted instead to telling her of children's books, like Tales of Beedle the Bard. Both of them knew that Marie didn't mean the question to ask about leisure books, but she dropped it nonetheless.

Of course, there were the students who hated him—purebloods and other such elitists who seemed to think that he had faked his name and come to Ombra to claim ownership. They seemed to clump in groups, and Harry was surprised to note that the clusters were usually groups of journeymen. Julius, the atrocious boy who roughed Sienna up a few days ago was with his two friends in class Cygnus, and that small girl with the glasses, Valerie Corinth, was in class Fornax.

"They're all mindless and too bored with their lives to bother with anything that inane," Calvin would say, and Harry would worry less, but then Calvin would follow with a scathing comment about his lack of wits, and Harry would feel dejected all over again. He couldn't understand why his name would entitle him some sort of ownership over Ombra, and he resolved to ask Professor Ricky about it as soon as the next weekend came. He left Calvin's words unchallenged like usual, and sought instead to befriend the cold blonde. Calvin's little glass man Howell would copy Calvin's sneer and snap at Arthur, who at all times during Dark Arts, History and Basic Theories class, would try and talk to dutiful glass man. Arthur would then mope sadly, and Harry would try to cheer him up.

When Doctor Paracelsus issued the half-monthly privilege points reports in the Entrance Hall, Harry was glad to note that he was faring quite OK after the arrow incident.

Marie came to him one break period, in the library. She seemed to be upset, and Harry out of concern, asked her what was going on.

"Harry, I'm sorry about Giles—this fifth year approached me and told me about what happened," she said woefully, though she wasn't close to tears. Harry expected as much, yet he quickly tried to placate her.

"You did no harm! Honestly. It's OK. I didn't get hurt, and Willas helped me pay for my treatment," he said soothingly. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Willas in over a week. Not that he was looking around. Harry hardly ever knew who he was surrounded with at most times, particularly because he tuned out every whisper that seemed to follow him throughout the school. But it seemed as though Willas had talked to Marie, and had not forgotten about their meeting days ago.

Marie, however, was still upset, and offered her help him in any way she can give it. Harry, unable to think of anything at the moment, asked her if she could have Sophia keep his glass man, Arthur, company. She obliged, and they studied the rest of the afternoon, with Marie going over some numerology, Harry trying to look for the proper book on curses, and the two glass people cheerfully playing hide and seek in between the tomes they have taken from the shelves.

One night, as Harry was preparing for bed, Someone threw open his bed hangings and grinned at him. It was Antonio, and he wasn't dressed for bed.

"Harry! Guess what?" he asked, hopping in place. Harry raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"What is it?" he asked, returning to arranging the rest of his things for the next day.

Antonio, in a fashion that Harry guessed was supposed to be dramatic, pulled a broom from under Harry's bed and presented it to him. Harry stared at it.

"Tiago owled me one of his older brooms today!" he exclaimed. "Sure, it came late because of the acromantula infestation at owl tower, but that's ok because it's here! Let's ride it."

Harry looked at him incredulously, then outside the windows. A wind had picked up and there was a slight drizzle. "Now? It's raining. And it's past seven. The professors might get angry."

Antonio ran to the window and cursed. "Darn it! It usually never rains in Ombra. It's very odd," he said, looking deflated. He then turned back to Harry and pouted.

"It's not a very heavy rain, Harry! We could still ride. I've gotten used to riding during wetter seasons. It's really nothing but a challenge," Antonio said eagerly.

Harry thought about it. He had caught up to his sleep a day ago and was feeling refreshed, and he really did want to experience what his father enjoyed as a sport. And maybe the professors wouldn't mind ...

"All right," Harry gave in, when Antonio's hopeful expression wore him down. "Just let me get some proper clothes on."

It was a few minutes later that Harry was wearing what he hoped could protect him from the rain, being dragged down to the watery courtyard by an excited Antonio.

* * *

From a window over at the east wing, Paracelsus looked down at Ombra's grounds, being revitalized by the rains. He followed with his gaze a shadow zipping in the quickly darkening night. He thought it must have been a Pteryx or Rok from the rocky hills, lost in the dark rain while hunting. Disoriented, perhaps, by the influx of energy. Magic, was, after all, more volatile and unpredictable during heavy weather.

On his desk was a paper called the Daily Prophet, with the headlines reading grave news. It said, in stark, foreboding lettering, "The Boy-Who-Lived, Disappeared", and on the newsprint were several articles pertaining to accounts of wizards, most notably Albus Dumbledore, The Boy-Who-Lived's supposed guardian, and headmaster of the school he was supposed to be sent to, Hogwarts. There was a mass confusion as to where the boy was, when a little more than a month ago the boy disappeared from under the warlock's nose, never to be seen again. It was highly speculated that his Muggle relatives had gotten rid of him somehow, but Paracelsus knew better.

Harry Potter happened to be in class Horologium with four other notable students, and, apart from that, Ombra's magical list called him Wyllt. Paracelsus had encountered similar peculiarities over the course of seven years, brought about by skillful pretenders who hoped that a subtle name change would entitle them to Ombra's secrets.

He had been as detached from Potter as possible, not intervening with the tide of highbred, self-righteous believers of the legend, trying to get some sort of reaction from Potter that was favorable towards his lineage's authenticity. But so far, the little boy graced him and his staff with none, only showing what every Ombran student should practice, that is, a modest diligence in schoolwork, a thirst for knowledge, and an eagerness to help others. All admirable traits, Paracelsus supposed, but not very telling ones.

He sighed and left the near-obscured view his window offered, and went back to his desk for some paperwork. Potter was at least thriving, and not falling back like some of the first years. He wouldn't have found any other excuse for letting the boy be admitted to this school if he had been incompetent.

But three weeks had come and gone. Someone needed to placate the tide of panic going through the wizarding world. He was going to have to ask Evan to track some death eater movement, if there were any, and have the other professors look onto what the other countries think of this development. It will be hard work, with owl tower in need of acromantula eradication, but it needed to be done. Harry was fully immersed in Ombra now, and Paracelsus would be hard pressed to pull him away from it.

* * *

Harry thought he was insane, and Antonio mad, and the both of them off their bloody rockers and everything else that said they were wrong in the head. It was pouring by the time they landed back, chuckling and laughing and choked on rainwater, after nearly killing themselves grazing the tops of the Ombran trees.

It was everything he thought a fantastic broom ride was, save for the branch that nearly launched them twenty five feet to the marshy ground. Antonio was quite skilled in maneuvering around obstacles with limited visibility, but even he hadn't seen the stubborn branch jutting from the canopy. It threw Antonio off, and Harry had to take control of the broom to chase him in the air and narrowly catch him.

They were stifling their giggles as they tiptoed in the darkness of Ombra's halls, with only a few torches throwing their shadows to the walls.

"Mad, you're completely mad, 'Tonio ..." Harry muttered in between fits of laughter, and Antonio kept throwing him cheeky glances and chuckling back.

"And what about you, Mr 'I've-never-ridden-a-broom-in-my-life-no-I'm-not-like-my-Seeker-father'? You caught me in the air like a Snitch!"

"A bloody large, insane Snitch, if you ask me."

"Compared to you, you puny little thing!"

They bantered for a while, until they decided to stop, exhausted from the flight and from reining their enjoyment in. Harry hadn't actually been having much fun at Ombra since he set foot in it, and he was glad that he was able to cut loose a little, and enjoy Antonio's easy-going personality.

"Where are we anyway?" Antonio asked. They were almost in total darkness, the last torch having been a few corridors ago.

"I think we're lost," Harry chimed, though he wasn't so happy when he aborbed his own words.

"Come off it. Ombra isn't that big, is it?" Antonio asked. As if in answer, the wind outside picked up even harder, howling as lightning flashed across the sky and showed every window in the hall.

"Achoo!" Harry bellowed, rubbing his nose after. Antonio glanced at him apologetically, and Harry shrugged it off.

"I'm usually more tolerant than this," Harry said, following it with another sneeze.

And then, as if the corridor couldn't get any darker, Harry was enshrouded in shadows.

Disoriented, Harry held his hands up in front of him and tried to look for something to grab on. "Antonio! Antonio!" He cried, but there was nothing. It was like he had gone to another place, and he felt the temperature drop to a biting chill.

He called for Antonio again, but there was no response. Nothing. Where was he?

And then, a tiny speck appeared in his vision, a small yet bright thing, growing and pulsating. It seemed to go near him, and Harry at first thought it was a firefly of sorts, until a scene unfolded, rolling out of the darkness, into a bigger view. The whole place was covered in a sickly glowing green aura, and everything seemed to be cold, dank and tainted with something unpleasant. Harry wanted to be sick. It was an altar, and a woman was there, chained on it with rusty links.

Harry wanted to help her, but his legs won't budge, seemingly stuck in place.

She was wailing, and wisps of the same green glow was emanating from her. Harry was terrified. It dug into her skin and carved flesh out, sickening, rotting flesh, and as soon as it spun out of her the wounds healed, only to be replaced by more.

Harry felt it. It was magic, and it was eating her. And she seemed to not die from the endless ripping and stitching of skin. Harry's stomach rolled, and he wanted to look away, but the woman's eyes, a hollow set of black orbs, settled on him, and forced him to look.

_Save me, young one._

Her toothless mouth shaped the words, and Harry, in complete terror, almost fainted. But afterwhich, he felt like he was suddenly jerked from where he was standing, and some light covered him, coming from inside—

The scene vanished in front of him, and he was on the floor, panting hard, tears running down his face.

He looked up. In front of him was a steel door, decorated with a thousand or so symbols, throbbing with eerie light. Harry heard Antonio's voice, and the door sank into the walls, and vanished.

"Harry!" Antonio cried, rushing over to him and kneeling. "It went completely dark, and you were suddenly gone—I almost went to the professors, but I felt it—it was _heavy_ and I didn't know what it was—it wasn't air, Harry, I think it was magic—and it moved throughout every corridor—gave me a right shove—"

There was a light coming for them, a lamp, and when it turned the corridor it was three people. Harry recognized Willas instantly, and also Professor Solona, who still looked radiant in her night robes, and a first year that Harry vaguely recognized as Valerie Corinth's journeyman.

"You two. What are you doing out of bed?" the professor sternly inquired. By the looks of it, the two other students were caught out of bed as well, and they were looking rather reprimanded for it.

"We—" Antonio started, but Harry had stood wobbling, holding onto Antonio's shoulder for support.

"We were lost. We flew outside on a broom and—"Harry stopped, as if trying to catch his breath, and saw Antonio about to protest, when he laid his hand on Antonio's, the one holding the wet broom. "—Lost."

The elf looked at them for a long while, as if trying to read into them, but dropped her gaze. "You four. Three privilege points off of each of you. And detention with me, this Saturday," she said. "Now off to bed! Before the ghosts of Ombra take you lot."

She took her lamp and conjured another three more from it, handing it over to them, before disappearing in another corridor. With the light, Harry vaguely recognized the hall as the west wing near the Dusk Library.

"You're certainly mischievous for you age, Harry," Willas said quietly, eyeing the two of them curiously. The other boy had already left, terrified by what the Light Arts professor said. Antonio seemed wary of the tall fifth year, pulling Harry's hand and his broom closer to him.

"Um, 'Tonio," Harry said. "This is Willas. He's a fifth year, And he was the person who gave me thirty points." At the dubious look Antonio gave the boy, Harry added, "and Marie knows him. Somewhat." It was an off-chance, but how else would Marie find out about Giles, when he had tried to hide the truth from her?

"Oh, I know him, Harry," Willas said, with a queer glint in his eyes. "Him and his brothers. How's Gerardo, Tony? Is he faring well in Estonia?"

"Fine," said Antonio stiffly. "I reckon you owl him a lot."

Willas turned his head and gave a rather strange smile. "Ah, alas. I knew him well, but not enough. We haven't kept in touch after he had graduated."

Antonio nodded awkwardly, and then tugged at Harry's wrist.

"We'll … be going to bed now," he muttered. Harry watched the exchange without a clue of what was going on. Antonio seemed uncharacteristically cool towards Willas, and Harry judged by the way certain key expressions running through Antonio's downcast face that he wasn't happy about seeing the fifth year.

"Of course. Keep him safe, Tony," Willas said, before heading off to wherever he slept.

Harry led the way, and didn't question the recent exchange of words that had happened, but instead tried to pull Antonio's bearings back to a cheerful note.

When they reached the Horologium door and entered the common room, Harry suddenly felt bone tired, and bid Antonio good night, telling him how enjoyable the night had been, despite their near death experience and the pounding rain. Antonio brightened up at that, and hinted at them maybe doing it again, and soon, hopefully with two brooms instead of one.

Harry, in the sudden rush of events, didn't quite collect his thoughts about the green room and the woman, at least until he got into bed, and dreamed of it in vivid detail, interlaced with the flying, glass men, and pigmy puffs.

* * *

Harry stared up at the wind feeling sick and tired. He was at the grassy training grounds behind Ombra after getting a friendly note that said, "see your future fly", and was shocked to see a lot of parchment in the air when he got there. Some had branches from trees stabbing and ripping through them, the others simply caught in the criss-crossing canopy, while the rest were strewn on the floor like giant, off-white leaves, soiled and dirtied by the walkway. He had picked one up and recognized his handwriting, and came to a blistering realization that all of them were his notes in class.

Harry summoned a surprising amount of anger and indignation, using his wand to _Accio _every piece of paper to him. He was muttering ever curse he knew, and for good reason.

It had been more than a month since these little pranks started on him, little things that stack up and become increasingly damaging to his academics. He had been earning privilege points as fast as he was losing them, and he had gotten an earful from Calvin for bringing their progress down. The second progress reports included class rankings, and among the fourteen first year classes, they ranked an abysmal twelfth.

Marie told them that the lower four classes don't get to go home for Christmas break, and won't get to enjoy the holidays. They would be confined in Ombra to study and work on their performance, as a form of light punishment. Harry didn't like it one bit, and he was surprised that Calvin agreed with him, but Antonio seemed less inclined to work harder, as well as Sienna.

"Nothing's really waiting for me at home," Antonio had commented. "I mean, sure, Gerardo would be glad to have me, but everyone else would be busy during Yule." Sienna would just shake her head and switch topics, and Harry and Marie would cease to pry.

But Harry wanted the choice at least. He terribly missed his grandfather, so fleeting were their reconciliation. And there were so many things to learn about his parents' lives that only the ghost knew—their friends, how they met, and their school life and so on. Harry wanted to hear all that from him. And sometimes he did dream of being back in Potter Manor, sitting next to a roaring fire while Sassy served him tea and treacle tart, his favorite dessert, listening to his ghostly grandfather telling him about anything and everything James and Lily.

"If you really wanted to go home for the holidays, Harry, it's already October," Antonio quipped.

"Sorry, I don't know how that's relevant," he said meekly, and Marie smiled at him.

"Come on, we're going outside," she announced, pulling Harry out of the cozy state he was in while studying in the common room.

"Out? But it's chilly," he complained, and Antonio chuckled as he followed.

Out in the courtyard, a tiny crowd had gathered, hooting and throwing taunts. Whichever way, Harry didn't know. But there were two older students on the ground, writing strange symbols in the dirt. Harry vaguely recognized them as the same symbols he saw on the huge steel door, the one that melted into the wall that night.

"What are they doing?" Harry asked, shaking himself out of the small daze. It took some time for him to notice that the symbols were being drawn into a wide circle.

"That's a rune glyph, Harry. A huge one," Marie answered, smiling at the crowd. "They're making it big because it needs to reach very high up."

"Uh, I hate to ask so many questions, but why? And what's a rune glyph?" he asked, blushing as he did. Marie smiled again, and Antonio grinned.

"It's all right Harry, we don't mind," Antonio said truthfully.

"You always look delightfully abashed when you do," Marie teased him. Harry blushed again.

She answered him. "Rune glyphs are what we do in Ancient Runes class. We make circles of ancient writing, which contain many strands of basic enchantments, stacked together in a strong, unbreakable wall of perpetual magic."

Harry didn't know such magic existed, having previously thought that Ancient Runes class was just theoretical study of old artifacts and the like. "Oh," he said stupidly.

"Oh, and I think they'll answer your other question for you, Harry." Antonio pointed to two students, a girl and a boy, walking out from the crowd and into the circle, to general cheers. Both of them had brooms in their hands, a wand in their other hand, and determination in their faces.

"What's gonna happen?" Harry asked, before he could catch himself asking more questions.

The two students rose from the ground and circled each other with their brooms, lazily swirling upwards until they were at a considerable height. And then, one of the students who wrote the runes fired a burst of magic onto the runes, and they flared to life, glowing and creeping clockwise on the ground. A wall of magic formed, almost transparent yet certainly there, reaching all the way up past the two students' heads.

And then, a whistle sounded. The air was suddenly filled with spells, and Harry stood transfixed as the two students had suddenly turned on each other and started throwing spells. Their brooms zoomed, and the girl ducked as a sickeningly fluid hex soared past, launching herself forward and firing red and violet spells in quick succession. The boy took a spell to the leg and spun out of control, and Harry was stunned to see blood dripping down to his shoes.

"That's—"

"Astounding," Marie said observantly.

"Wicked," Antonio said excitedly.

"I was going for 'nasty' or 'life-threatening', but OK," Harry said, grinning at them hesitantly. He then looked back up, and bit his lip in excitement as he saw the girl summon a wind that blew the boy off his broom. Clutching it for his dear life with one hand, he was firing spells with his right, the wind tousling his shoulder-length hair and robes violently. Harry winced when another spell hit his other leg, this time making it red and swollen.

"Oh no …" Harry muttered.

"Yeah," Antonio breathed. "That guy, Davos, I've heard he's really good at Rok fights. He doesn't seem to be in a good position."

"Rok fights?" Harry asked, then flushed scarlet again.

"Yeah. It's a sport here in Ombra," Antonio said, his attention half on the two fighting students. "It always starts on October. Anyone can challenge anyone, but the fights are only during daylight and breaks."

"It sounds very dangerous. What do the professors think?" Marie said, intrigued.

"That's the awesome part," Antonio suddenly exclaimed. "They're all for it! You see, you can officially earn up to fifty privilege points from a losing student's class. That is, whoever loses up there reserves the right to demand it from the other."

"Interesting," Marie said, with a hint of actual interest, Harry took note. "And how does one win in a Rok fight?" Marie asked, and Harry as silently thankful for her asking it for him.

And then, the crowd gasped, and two spells came soaring through the air, one expelling water onto the girl, the other freezing it near instantly.

The girl plummeted to the floor, her body half covered in ice, and Harry would have yelled for someone to save her, if she wasn't then cushioned by an invisible force. It was magic, pushing from the runic glyph, and Harry breathed out air he didn't know his lungs were holding.

"You disbroom them," Antonio said, his lips curling into a wide grin.

And then cheers erupted, and Harry was amazed at the blast of screams. He didn't notice a larger crowd had gathered, and was watching with near crazed attention. Harry felt like grinning, and so he did.

"Wasn't that amazing? Oh, I wish I could battle someone up there in the air, you know, if I become more adept in magic," Antonio said breathlessly, as if he was the one up there and not this Davos, who was grinning from ear to ear as he descended. He was still on his broom when he was at level with everyone, since both his legs were badly damaged, but one of his journeymen, another boy, fished out an amulet and started focusing vast amounts of magic onto it. In seconds, the wounds had healed into scars, and the younger years stood still with awe.

"Who is that?" Marie voiced, eyeing the other boy with interest. "He has a necklace for a medium."

"That boy who healed him? They say he's a prodigy. He took almost every class available in fifth year, and came out relatively sane and at the top of his class. Can you believe it? Steven's his name," Antonio said with admiration. Harry saw the pair coming over towards them, and Harry went wide eyed when the boy, Davos, winked at him.

"You're that Wyllt kid, aren't you?" he said, throwing him a brilliant smile. Harry could only nod.

"Well," Davos said, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Let's all hope you're the real one this time, eh?" He left then, with his friend Steven throwing him a curious look before following, and once again Harry bore the brunt of another tide of whispers and glances.

"I'm starting to get tired of people talking about me," Harry sighed, turning away and walking towards a less occupied hall. Antonio and Marie who were following him, raised their eyebrows.

"Can you blame them, Harry?" Antonio said unabashedly.

"All they ever talk about is you," Marie mused. "That's because of your name. And of course, other notable people, like Professor Ricky and that Rok fighter over there giving you attention."

"But I don't get it!" Harry griped. "I went to the libraries and looked for texts on Wyllt, and nothing's came up about him! What's so special about that name, anyway?" he asked sullenly.

Antonio and Marie exchanged a look. Harry stared at the both of them.

"You won't find anything in the Dawn or the Dusk library, Harry," Antonio said after a while.

"Your name, Wyllt—it's an ancient name. And it's deeply connected to Ombra Castle, and Merlin himself," Marie supplied.

Harry gave them a dubious look. "I don't—my grandfather, he never told me anything about me being a Wyllt."

They continued to walk, and Antonio put an arm around his shoulder. "We're just as confused as you are, Harry. When we met you, you said you were Harry Potter. And then Headmaster Laverne called you Wyllt-Potter, and things got out of hand."

"Is that why people do stuff to me?" Harry said unhappily.

"What stuff?" Marie asked.

"My notes. I got a note days ago and it said to come to the training grounds. When I got there I saw my notes flying everywhere. In trees, on the wet ground," Harry said, his voice going very quiet. Antonio and Marie exchanged another look behind Harry.

"That's unfair," Antonio said indignantly.

"This is getting out of hand," Marie decided. "You have to tell Paracelsus. Or Professor Ricky."

"I would, but I wouldn't want to seem so weak, I …" Harry muttered. "No. I could handle this myself."

* * *

"I wanted to ask you something, professor," Harry said while in the middle of reading a Dark Arts text. He and Calvin had been paired for a project and assumed the blonde would be uncooperative, hence his getting a head start on reading.

"What about?" Professor Ricky said amiably. He smiled, and set his teacup down on a table.

Harry had been in awe when he had entered the professor's quarters the first time. It had such a different taste from Ombra's timeless yet streamlined decors, yet still held the hint of subtle magics buzzing about. It was lit brighter, first and foremost, and had a lot of cloths strewn about, draped on a shelf here, half-covering a window, and then settling down onto a lower cabinet, or twisting behind a stone statue and fanning out next to a painting. It was colorful and pleasantly exotic, and Harry found that he very much like the feel of it.

Even his glass man Arthur seemed less somber in the room, enjoying sliding down the draperies. Harry often took him here when it was the weekend and the little man was moping about, and the scents and candles and weird artifacts often replaced Howell in Arthur's little mind.

One time, Harry had barged in on the handsome professor talking animatedly to Professor Rosier, whom Harry still hadn't figured out if he was nice or not. That question was answered that day, when he invited Harry over and they talked about how Harry was doing.

"How's Ombra treating you?" the Dark Arts professor asked. "Have you been touched by a ghost yet?"

"Evan!" Professor Ricky said in aghast, "poor Harry's just a child."

"I said nothing frightful, Ricky. Are you suggesting something else, when I said 'touch'?" he asked pointedly, and Professor Ricky had shut up.

Harry didn't understand them then, and hadn't pried, but instead had answered timidly. "It's been very nice. The castle surprises me a lot. I was going to my common room one time and fell in a hole that just appeared out of nowhere, and ended up being spilled into a pile of pots in the kitchens." They had laughed, and broken easily into the ice.

"Your question, Harry?" Ricky prompted in amusement, and Harry snapped back to the present. "You do quite often phase out a lot when you're in this room."

Harry blushed. "I'm sorry. It's just that I've been thinking about a lot of things."

"Like what?" the professor inquired lightly.

"Do you know anything about the name Wyllt, professor?" Harry blurted.

The professor's lips quirked in his tea. He set it down, looked at Harry thoughtfully, and then spoke.

"I'm sure you've heard from Professor Agrippa about the illustrious little history of our own Ombra. Well, it's all quite true, you see. Don't ask me how I should know, but I do," he smiled, and got distracted by a little bug that decided to crawl on his lap. He flicked it away, and continued. "From what I know, and from what the little purebloods in the student body know, passed down to them by their ancestors, right down to their parents, the Wyllt name is somehow tied to the greatest wizard of all, the one who started it all. I believe you know him as Merlin."

Harry had already guessed as much, from when he had the little conversation with Antonio and Marie. "Yes I do, but, what's that got to do me? How tied was the Wyllt name to Merlin?"

Professor Ricky's lips quirked again, and then he stood, going over to a bookshelf and whistling a tune as he perused. After a while he made a sound that said he has found what he was looking for, and then went back over to Harry with a book.

"Read this," he said. "I've had this book for many years. It's about Merlin himself."

He gave Harry the book, and Harry stared at it as it sat on his lap.

"Merlin, they said, was powerful, but not without his weaknesses. He had been a bard's son, after all, a boy enthralled with songs and words. When he discovered his immense power, he had written it down, recorded every instance that he witnessed while wielding it. He was the first Light Lord, because he did only good with that power."

Professor Almerick drank some tea, and then continued. "But at a young and fresh age he fell in love. Magical history does not tell who it was that stole the young man's heart, but it is believed that he fathered a son."

The professor looked at the book, and then stared into Harry's wide, innocent eyes. "The Wyllts were supposed to be descendants of Merlin. If that were true, Harry, and if you are a true Wyllt, then I suspect that you'd be in for a treat."

Harry was dumbfounded. "A treat, sir?" he choked.

"This castle has been very restless, Harry. Magic is swirling everywhere, and the headmaster doesn't know why. Come to think of it, the headmaster had been using the portals quite a lot, going from place to place on business."

Harry had wondered where she had been. He remembered only seeing her during the Trial, and that already seemed long ago to Harry.

"The other day we've had a report of a hippogriff stamping into the oracle's pond near the training grounds, wounding two students in Advanced Divination. You've heard of the acromantula breakout causing a temporary shutdown to owl tower's portal to Britain. Letters have been spouting up everywhere in the United Kingdom, everywhere but their intended destinations. Professor Ollerton's been having doubts about continuing to use actual creatures for Magizoology. The animals have been going mad, Harry, and it's all due to the sudden surge of magic this castle's been emitting."

Harry had gone silent, returning back to the night when he saw the vision of the chained woman. Did that have anything to do with the magical surge? And the steel door, what was behind it?

Professor Ricky chuckled. "Harry, you're zoning out again."

Harry snapped out of his reverie and flushed. "I'm sorry again, professor. A lot on my mind."

The professor nodded. "I'm sure you do. Now run along. We're done for today, and you can keep that book."

Harry, who was already clutching it to his heart, smiled and nodded. "Thank you, professor."

"See you in class then, Harry. And remember this—it will all make sense in the end."

Harry, slightly mystified with the very puzzling words, left the professor's quarters, eager to start on his new book.

* * *

The owl was mortally injured, but it pressed on, adamant to do its duty. It got tossed in the high winds, as the autumn storm beat down and peaked. Its letter had remained unreceived for days, and the owl, lost in the storm, was at that point only trying to survive.

Unknowingly, the owl barreled through a thick layer of protection wards, freezing in place and falling. It suffered a fatal fall onto some cobblestones, and lay still in the night.

Inside the manor, Lucius Malfoy stirred, the ward wired to his senses alerting him. He was in his study, enjoying the silence of the manor and catching up on his reading. An elegant eyebrow quirked, and he stood from his desk, walking towards the window.

"Dobby," he said, after a while.

The house-elf appeared almost instantly by his side, bowing low so that his drooping ears touched the floor.

"Master Malfoy, Dobby is at your service," Dobby said.

"Fetch me the owl," Lucius said icily. The house elf bowed again, and disappeared.

Lucius had been oddly calm these days, despite the faint stirrings his Dark Mark made. It was a sign, he thought, of the Dark Lord returning. Or at least recovering somewhere, unhurt. When he had learned the news of his Lord's death, he didn't believe it. Maybe not as fervently as the Lestranges, but he knew the Dark Lord to be more devious and strategic than that, that maybe his Lord had some sort of retreat or back-up plan, should his power come to an abrupt end.

Lucius' devotion to the Dark Lord had always been proportional to the Dark Lord's overall influence in the wizarding world. In a time where the wizarding world thought him dead, his beliefs turned less outspoken, and his allegiances obscured. He could not risk being in the losing side, not ever, when he had a very high reputation as a Malfoy to keep, and an illustrious family to support and maintain.

In mere moments, Dobby was back, fearfully handing over a letter that had been tied to the once living owl, and Lucius, after a barrage of inspection spells decided it was safe to read.

_Mother, Father, Holly_

_ I've passed! I'm officially an Ombran student! I'm sorry that this letter was sent late—I didn't expect to be hit with this many an academic load as early as the first week. I'm doing fine with it, however, and thinks are looking great. _

_ Father, you were right! Paracelsus does exist! And oddly enough, our professors seem pretty unusual as well. My Arithmancy professor, Professor Wenlock, looked disturbingly the same as the one in my Chocolate Frog Card collection with the same name. It wasn't only her, either. I found other professors who had the same name as famous witches and wizards. Could that be possible, Father? Could they be the same exact people?_

_ But that wasn't the most intriguing thing that's happened. Remember those stories you told me and Holly, Mother? About Myrddin Wyllt and his thrice death? The one they thought was Merlin? Well, there's this one boy in my year, Harry Potter, whom the headmaster called out as Harry Wyllt-Potter! It was simply astonishing. I didn't even know it was the real name. But believe me, people have been talking about him nonstop in this place. It's really starting to get tiring._

_ By the way, I took the following classes—_

Lucius had stopped reading, a vague expression of shock that he wouldn't normally allow himself to show in public written plainly on his face. The Potter boy. Could this be the reason of his disappearance? He was in another school? Ombran … he'd never heard that term before. And Lucius Malfoy had such a vast extent of public knowledge that the whole thing seemed suspicious.

He thought at first that somebody might have been playing a trick on him, but he saw no immediate gain from it, other than irritating him. However, he did take to note one other information in the letter, and that was the passage on Paracelsus.

It seemed incredibly unlikely, near impossible, really, but the great alchemist's existence could only mean one thing. Lucius learned from his father Abraxas that Paracelsus had been a researcher on ancient magic, particularly on an all-cure. Panacea, a potion so potent in preserving the body from diseases, that it preserved life altogether. Was that it then? Did this Paracelsus prolong his life for centuries, and did he hide in this school?

It was all such an atrocity to Lucius. An all-cure. Something that could aid the Dark Lord, should he be alive, still. Or something that could be of significant worth. He glanced at his shoulder, where the sleeve of his robes hid the Mark. He had half a mind to think he was being deceived, but part of the letter's wording and the untidy scrawl seemed oddly natural, for a supposed eleven year old's letter.

Lucius was glad he had already sent his son Draco to Hogwarts, for he wouldn't be able to call meetings at such short notice like this.

* * *

**Notes: **Review and tell me what you think!


	6. Pressure

**Notes: **If there are any inconsistencies with the way I write, please let me know. Also, please review! I am very open to constructive criticisms. Just don't review with outright hate. It will just break my heart. Lol. And also, I love you all, readers! I'm having sooo much shit thrown at me in college because of the stupid enrollment system, and I'm way too depressed to do anything. At least it's given me some form of muse, so that's good news for you.

ALSO! I FORGOT to disclaim this fanfic. The DISCLAIMER would be in a revised chapter one (just adding the disclaimer).

**Chapter 5:** Pressure

"Calvin's a stuck-up jerk, Harry. You shouldn't be listening to him," Antonio argued. They were inside the Light Arts classroom, waiting for Professor Solona to arrive. Harry was also waiting for Willas to come, for he was given detention as well. Harry didn't know why the detention had to be done in the dead of the night, but he wasn't about to argue with the professor. He liked the castle at night anyway. Any excuse to not be in bed having nightmares was a valid one.

"But he's absolutely right, Tonio," Harry said sullenly, looking at his lap dejectedly. "I've been pulling everyone down with the points I keep losing. I have to do something about it somehow."

"Well, why do you lose them in the first place?"

"It's—"Harry stopped, wondering if he should continue. He decided to do so when Antonio prompted him with a look. "—I'm often late in class because I get held up somehow—like, I have to rewrite my notes or—my bag gets severed in the middle of a hall—"

"What you need, Harry, is someone looking after you," said a voice from the door. The two first years turned to it and found Willas walking in, carrying a knapsack slung over his shoulder. His face registered a vaguely bored expression, except for his eyes, which were glinting in interest.

Antonio's face turned guarded, and he gave the older year a chilling look. Harry had never seen Antonio look like that, and resolved to definitely ask about it later.

"I did specifically told you to watch out for Harry, didnt I, Tony?" Willas lightly chided, looking at Antonio like how an adult looks down at a petulant child. He went over to a desk and propped himself up on it.

"I have—I mean, but I was busy with class, and-" Antonio reasoned, confusing Harry even more. How Antonio went from dubious to flustered in Willas presence was more than odd. But what surprised him even more was that Antonio had been looking out for him. Harry felt warmed, but browbeaten as well. Antonio has as much school worries to bother with as he does, and does not need Harry's problems adding to his own.

"You don't have to look out for me," Harry said guiltily, but firmly all the same. "I can take care of myself."

"We know that, Harry," Willas told him patiently. "But this matter is simply out of your hands. Even if you tell a teacher, people conspiring to such a collaborative effort as this would be hard to pin. It's better off that you give out a message that you're not one to be messed with."

"And how do you think we'll do that, Will?" Antonio asked, almost sheepishly refering to the older boy with a nickname and taking Harry unawares. But then, at that moment Professor Solona entered, swooping over to them in a grace that Harry thought was inhuman. Behind her was a female student, wearing different kinds of robes. Apprentice robes, Harry thought, same as the ones Giles wore.

"Mr Appleseed won't be joining us today, due to an unfortunate incident in his Magizoology class. He is currently in the sanctum, being detoxified. Which means my original plan to have you four work on cleaning parts of the Dawn and Dusk libraries in pairs would not be adequate." She seemed incensed by this, so none of them chose to comment.

"Instead you will be following Ms Westerly, who has gracefully volunteered to accompany you to your detention, to the base of Morgan's Sepulchre. It seems that the acromantulas were coming from a cave not too distant from there, and I need some extra wands with her," she was already bustling about in her desk, looking for things she might need to give them.

"Extra wands?" Willas inquired. "Tony and Harry aren't expected too much spellwork, I hope."

The professor gave him an icy glare, a look much too vehement to be given without reason. "Don't trouble yourself, Mr Branford. We only need basic incantations, which I'm sure these two bright boys could handle," she muttered. And when she had finished, she sent them off, with the girl Westerly leading the way, down the halls and out to Ombra's courtyard, into the field where they had the Trial, past the dragon's wing statue and through the dense forest.

Now Harry, for the life of him didn't know what to expect. He had not come across a fully grown acromantula yet, and didn't know how to deal with one.

"You know that spell in the book we ran through the other day? The one next to the Grindylow repellent?" Antonio said when Harry asked. He vaguely recalled it, remembering the wand movements more than the words, yet he nodded all the same.

"What was it again? Something about arachnid?" Harry tried to recall.

"_Arania Exumae_," Antonio replied, pleased that Harry could somehow remember. "That will fend them off."

"Do you know the location, Branford?" Westerly asked with the same stiff chill as the elven professor, when she got tired of the thick underbrush.

Willas nodded, giving her a look. "I think so. We went there last year to collect asphodel roots for Potions."

The girl huffed, looking bedraggled. "Take Exupery and Apparate there through side-along. I'll Apparate with Potter."

Before Westerly could take Harry however, Willas sidled alongside Harry. "I think I'll take Potter. I reckon he hasn't experienced Apparition before."

She glared at him, but nodded stiffly nonetheless.

Willas took Harry's hand, and Harry, taken unawares, flinched from the firm grip, but went lax when he realized he did, flushing scarlet. The tiny response didn't go unnoticed by the older boy.

"What did she mean by apparate?" Harry asked shyly, looking down at their hands like it was some alien custom, yet before Willas could answer, the girl and Antonio had already Disapparated in a puff of magic. Harry went wide-eyed and Willas smiled at his naivety.

"Wand out, Harry. We won't know what would be there when we arrive," he said. When Harry had his wand firmly in his grip, he was pulled from where he was standing, feeling oddly squished and bloated at the same time, before landing on his toes into another patch of grass, almost tripping over himself.

Harry had two second's delay to pick up the spells coming their way.

"_Protego," _Willas hissed, pushing Harry back behind him. "Get back, Harry! It's an ambush!"

Harry grew wide-eyed and his heart picked up when he realized what was happening. They were in a clearing a few meters off the sepulcher, and five robed figures were throwing spells at them in tandem. Willas' Protean charm cracked and turned to powder.

"Let me help!" Harry cried, but Willas stood in front of him like a sentry.

"_Haurio, Protego, Promineum Terra!_" Willas cast without missing a beat, and a green shield and a blue barrier snapped in place. Then, the ground welled up, cracked, and sent a huge block of earth up to screen them. "Stay behind me!"

"Can't we go back? Apparate?" Harry said in a panic. Spells grazed the earthen bunker and hit the shields, bouncing off the blue and being absorbed by the green.

"Can't," Willas gritted, "anti-Apparition wards are in place. Someone with them knows how to Glyph Inscribe."

"Give the boy up, Branford!" Westerly yelled from over the bunker. "We promise we won't hurt the Boy-Who-Lived!"

The two of them shared a look, Harry looking confused as ever and Willas' face hardening. Spells blew hot dirt over their faces, and Harry itched to use his wand.

"I'm not—what is she talking about?" Harry cried, his eyes searching Willas' for an answer.

"Did you hear the news from Britain, Branford? There's a price for the Boy-Who-Lived's head! Pity we have to take him alive to claim it!"

"That's voice—it's Giles," Harry breathed, looking alarmed as Willas sparked with magic. The three spells must be taking their toll on him.

"Take the shields off, Branford! Or we'll hurt the little bastard in Potter's year!"

Harry's eyes snapped to Willas face. "They have Tonio! I have to go get to him!"

Willas shook his head firmly. "No. No one's getting to you. I promised."

"Promised? Promised what? Willas, you're not making sense—"

The blue shield shattered, and twice as many spells started siphoning into the green shield, redirected to the ground harmlessly. The spells grew more intense as explosives and projectiles battered at the bunker, and Willas was quickly losing energy.

"Put the shields down!" Harry demanded, and for a moment Willas' eyes widened at Harry's commanding tone. It was different, firmer—Willas had never heard Harry sound that way before. The boy's magic flashed and crackled around him, and he thought he was going to have to block magic from both ends, when he hesitantly decided to end the shields.

But a few more spells soared past, heading towards Willas startled face.

Harry, without a moment's hesitation, jumped.

The base of Morgan's Sepulchre exploded in a cloud of dust. Antonio's cries could be heard in the echoing explosion.

The students wore identical dazed expressions. "Did we—have we killed them?" one murmured in awe.

When the dust cleared, the two remained unhurt, surrounded by a shimmering golden glow. Harry was on the ground with Willas, lying completely on top of him. Willas' face registered an expression of astonishment.

Harry stood up, looking at the Westerly, Giles, and the rest of them.

"Take me, then. But don't hurt my friends," Harry said firmly, his body emanating a thick golden aura. Thick wisps of magic licked all around him, touching their cores, sweeping low on the ground and brushing against the grass and the rocks. Along the forest, creatures peeked about curiously, drawn by the radiating magic.

The rest of them were in awe. The magic felt free and refreshing, washing over them in full waves. It shot towards Antonio and Willas, basking them in the warm glow. Before they realized what was happening, however, they were gone, Apparated out of the clearing.

And then, as soon as it swelled, it ceased, slowly disappearing into the wind. Harry stood unfazed, waiting to be taken.

* * *

His hands were bound behind his back with _Incarceus _as they threw him on a hovering broom. Giles had the burden of riding the broomstick with him—making sure that he was secure—for it was his idea to turn Harry in.

Harry's face was expressionless, accepting the inevitability of his capture silently. Somehow he felt it was something he needed to do, given that his head had a bounty on it. He just didn't understand what the Boy-Who-Lived business was about. He would've asked, but he didn't want to seem stupid all over again. Two months of asking questions about himself grew tiring.

The five, along with their captive Harry, took to flight and left the sepulcher base, flying towards Splinter Portal, the nearest portal exiting the Ombran Valley. Harry stared at the creatures in wonder as they came out of hiding to gaze up at their flight. Harry felt oddly elated.

He didn't think they were making this Boy-Who-Lived business up, by the way the students' faces looked so sure about it when they talked. They said things about the telltale scar on his forehead, and the distinct raven hair of the Potters. Harry knew his father's name was ancient and pureblood, but he honestly hadn't thought of how any of that mattered, or how other purebloods even came to know of his father.

He didn't understand how one of the students made quite a fuss about it, how none of them had quite made the connection that he was a pureblood Potter. Another commented that the name was as common as it gets, but the pureblood line had always been a figure of power. Harry thought of how self-absorbed their parents must have been about being pureblooded, that their children were spouting such nonsense. He wasn't even pureblood-his mum's blood coursed through his veins. Something that he felt like blurting out, but didn't.

It was a smooth exit to Dartmoor, but the students were all tense and silent during the flight. Harry figured it had something to do with the spectacular show his magic had demonstrated. He was still coming to terms with that explosion of magic, not fully comprehending how he could have achieved it. He eventually decided it must have been due to the amount of distress he was experiencing at the time, how, more than anything, he wanted the fighting to be over.

He hoped Tonio and Willas were all right, wherever his magic took them. The older boy eluded him. He was the person who, at the moment, kept him most intrigued and baffled at the same time. Harry didn't understand why Tonio acted that way around him, didn't get why Willas seemed so intent on keeping him safe.

But all the same, he kept quiet about everything. Harry thought the students must have prepared for this, for none of their heads seemed to be lolling lazily, and their eyes seemed to be wide and lucid, unlike his were. Harry vaguely wondered if any of the professors had been alerted, but then everything started fading.

Someone shook him. He opened his eyes and found that he had fallen asleep while tied to a broom, and some parts of his body were sore from inactivity, except for his stomach, which hurt because it had been supporting him on Giles' broom the whole time. The boy who shook him was the other student, Mortimer, who lauded the Potters as much as he loathed them.

"Up," he said in a detached manner. Harry was on the floor, limbs still tied. He tried to blink the bleariness away, but couldn't get his eyes to moisten enough. He did comply, however, and stood on his feet. Mortimer pulled him harshly towards a hallway, and Harry, with his glasses taken away, couldn't discern anything except for blurs.

They turned a lot, going from hall to hall. There was a fear in Harry, a small, niggling thing, but it was there nonetheless, reinforcing the small trembles the cold halls gave him. It was fear that he had made a mistake of letting himself be taken there, and that he was going to be brought somewhere to be punished. Harry didn't think he had to answer for anything, for he wasn't really aware that he did anything punishable. He kept telling himself that, even though he didn't know the wizarding laws enough to draw conclusions.

They stopped in front of a doorway, and Harry stared up at the hulking wood.

"Wait here," Mortimer ordered, and stepped inside. Harry thought of a lot of things, but running while he was unguarded wasn't one of them. He was half-blind and wouldn't be able to go anywhere because he hardly knew the place anyway.

The doors opened, and Harry squinted in the light.

"My boy," said the voice of an old man. "You're alive."

Harry was led in. It was a small sitting room filled with unassuming furniture, and shelves filled with unread, similar looking books.

There were seven of them in the room-two of the students whom he still didn't know, Westerly, Mortimer, Giles Shmidt, the old man and himself. His vision went clear when someone—he didn't know who—levitated his glasses back on his face.

The old man was grey, yet Harry noticed he had a certain robust posture behind the heavy robes that aged him. He had a glint in his eyes, a kind of soul-searching look that Harry didn't like on him.

"Is he the Boy-Who-Lived, then?" said Giles impatiently. "Because we'll be taking our reward now."

The old man nodded. "Very good, children. But you must be mistaken. It was the Ministry who said there would be a reward."

"But you're Albus Dumbledore! The Chief Warlock! Surely the Wizengamot's part of the Ministry!" Mortimer piped, anger beginning to riddle his voice. Harry's gaze went back to Dumbledore in awe. He had heard of that name before, from his grandfather. Leader of the Light, the scion of the First Wizarding War.

"Ah, you have me there, Mr Tautbow. But you are wrong, still. The Wizengamot is a separate entity of the Ministry in a sense that we deliver the justice of the law, but not the control of the public. Remember, Sirius Black was incarcerated without a trial, a decision by the Ministry," he chided, gesturing for Harry to follow into another room. Dumbfounded, Harry walked, but not without staring back at the students. His eyes widened when one of the students had quickly thrown a hex straight at Dumbledore's back.

Dumbledore turned, raised his hand, and the magic ate away the hex into nothing. The student stood shocked, while the others wore mixed expressions of fear and stunned disbelief.

The doors where Harry entered then burst open, and four wizards stepped in brandishing wands. "Freeze! Unauthorized entry into the Ministry! Put your wands on the ground and step away from them!" said one of them, a witch with purple hair.

"Our cue to leave my boy," Dumbledore said amiably, and he took Harry by the shoulders, and he felt pulled of the Earth once again. He heard the fading sounds of cries and yells of outrage from both his fellow Ombrans and the wizards, and saw blurring lights bursting from wands before darkness.

When they arrived, or rather landed onto soft earth, Harry stumbled on his robes, dirtied by their altercation in the clearing, and fell on his knees. Dumbledore graciously picked him up and dusted him off with a charm. He used his wand this time, and Harry stood staring with wide eyes.

"Come along, dear Harry," Dumbledore said, his face alight with mirth. Harry stood still for a second before shaking his head and complying. They walked across a well-trudged path, and Harry could see they were going towards a castle. The small dawn light was breaking the night, yet Harry didn't feel tired at all.

"You didn't use a wand, sir," Harry said dumbly. "That was a magic-eating curse, wasn't it?"

Dumbledore glanced at him curiously, before nodding. "Quite right, my boy. I would have thought that you wouldn't know any magic, coming from where you came from."

Harry didn't know what he meant by that, but then made the connection in his mind. Dumbledore must have not known of his enrollment at Ombra. He decided to keep silent about that, and followed along timidly.

* * *

Harry had been in awe, as if he were entering Ombra's castle again for the first time. Hogwarts castle looked very much like what Harry assumed castles in the olden times looked like, all dank and dark and full of suits of armor. It was also cold, but Harry shivered more from the frank looks the moving portraits gave him and the whispers they exchanged.

After a myriad of halls, however, they reached a giant stone gargoyle at the dead end of a hall. Harry looked up at Dumbledore with a questioning gaze, and the old man smiled kindly down at him.

"Sherbet lemon," Dumbledore said, and the gargoyle came to life, the heavy stone grating against the floor as it turned, revealing a spiral staircase behind it. Harry stared at it in fascination. Dumbledore gestured for him to follow, and Harry did, trailing behind him. It was a long ascent, but when they got to the wooden door, Harry didn't feel winded. Dumbledore opened it and stepped in, and Harry stood in the doorway for a second, looking at what seemed to be an office.

The shelves curved and spiraled awkwardly, filled were they of more strange mini-contraptions that clinked and buzzed and glowed than books and tomes. There were strange things everywhere, a weird shaped vase or a particularly vicious-looking plant. There were also potions jars and vials, stuffed animals, portraits, curtains, and wooden furniture. Where Professor Almerick's office was homey, this office was disconcerting.

Harry then turned his gaze towards the center of the room, where two people sat in front of a desk. One was a black-haired man with a sallow face and a hooked nose, and the other, a stern-looking old woman with her graying hair wrapped in a tight bun. They were both in nightwear, and Harry felt oddly sorry for getting them out of bed. Dumbledore had already taken his place behind the desk, and was looking at him expectantly.

"Well, come inside Harry. We have much to talk about," he said in a most grandfatherly way. Harry thought it was different from his grandfather Isaac's voice. This one was more inviting, whereas his grandfather's had a certain grumpy quality to it. He took a seat, and noticed that the two other occupants of the room had been staring rather blatantly at him.

"Albus," said the woman, in a slightly disbelieving voice. "How on earth did you find him?" She looked at him like she was a ghost, while the other, the gloomy, wintry man, glared.

"Some young wizards were in the Ministry answering to an offer of the Ministry's-to reward anyone who brought them young Harry," Dumbledore explained.

"Are you all right, Mr Potter? Might I ask if you're hurt?" the woman asked in concern. Before he shook his head, the other man snapped.

"He is _fine_, Minerva. No need to coddle the little brat," the man said coldly. The woman, Minerva's severe gaze swept towards the man, who sat unfazed by it.

"Um," Harry said, shying away from the sudden hostility of the professor.

"Ah, of course. You would be thinking of what to call them," Dumbledore said. "This is Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, Head of Gryffindor House, and Transfigurations professor. This man is Severus Snape, Potions Master, Head of Slytherin House, and Potions professor."

"Professors," Harry acknowledged meekly.

"We must hear from you now, my boy," Dumbledore said with grave alacrity. "Your sudden disappearance was a blow and shock to the Wizarding World, but the announcement of your return must wait. Surely you have a lot to tell us about where you have been for the past month and a half."

They all wore varying degrees of expectance, with Snape's lingering glare looking more impatient and searching.

Harry was about to reply some sort of threadbare lie, when a knock on the door resounded. All of them shared looks of perplexity. And then the door swung open, and who would Harry expect but Headmaster Laverne and Professor Almerick to come enter the room.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," she said, letting herself in with an air of superiority. "Might I inquire how you came into the possession of my school's student?"

Professor Almerick's eyes were already fixed on him, probably searching him for any injury. Harry smiled at him reassuringly.

"Mr Exupery and Mr Branford appeared in my bedchamber in a glow of light, and started chattering urgently of your abduction," he said, winking at him. "We're here to take you back."

Harry had already scooted closer to them, and when he looked at Dumbledore, the old, kind face was gone, replaced by a more serious expression.

"How did you get into Hogwarts?" the deputy headmistress demanded. "The school has a multitude of anti-intrusion wards—"

"Let me stop you there, Minerva McGonagall," Professor Laverne said in a completely dismissing tone. "I think I would know some of the entrances to this castle, seeing as one of its Founders was my ancestor."

They all looked at her in wonder, then. "My name is Laverne Montmorency, Headmaster of Ombra School of Magickery. Harry Potter is enrolled there under our tutelage. This is Professor Almerick Sawbridge, Charms Master and professor."

Dumbledore looked gravely at them, but sat still as a statue. "Harry Potter's enrollment in Hogwarts has already been paid for by his parents' Gringotts account. It is written under law that he cannot be enrolled in two wizarding schools. Seeing as his parents saw Hogwarts more fit to teach him, as do I, his current Ministry approved guardian in the Wizarding World, I would say that young Harry would need to be transferred here, as was intended."

Harry saw the small triumphant glint in the old wizard's eyes. He looked up at Professor Laverne in dread, but she only wore a patiently amused expression.

"That may be true, Headmaster," she said. "But we have received approval from an existing relative, one addressed from a place called Potter Manor, sealed with dark blue wax and the Potter seal."

The look of shock from the three wizards' faces made Harry want to giggle.

"That is absurd!" Professor Snape said vehemently. "Potter's orphaned!"

"But apparently, still taken care of by a Potter," Professor Laverne said coolly. "Isaac Potter contacted me before the young Potter knew of the place. Standard Ministry procedure of course, to contact the school before the school year and enrollment. We are very much in line with Ministry law."

Harry didn't know his grandfather and the headmaster of Ombra had been contacting each other. Harry guessed that it would have to have happened if it was law to do so. But Harry still couldn't help feeling left out of the underhanded negotiations.

Professor Almerick stepped closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder, which made made him instantly relax. The professor smiled down at him, and he smiled back.

"Now, we should be leaving," Professor Laverne announced, taking them both to the door, when Headmaster Dumbledore stood up.

"Laverne Montmorency," he said in an even, expressionless tone. The female headmaster looked back with an impatient expression.

"I daresay I have not heard of Ombra before. Nor the name Laverne Montmorency. I have encountered it once, in an old history book. She lived in the 1850s, as I recall."

Dumbledore let the thought hang in the air, and Professor Laverne caught it.

"Are you calling me an imposter, Light Lord?" she said, in as much of an even tone as Dumbledore said her name.

"Isaac Potter died twenty three years ago," Dumbledore said matter-of-factly, as if he was there in his deathbed when he did. He probably was, Harry thought, looking at the old man.

"Out with it, Dumbledore," she said challengingly.

"I cannot allow you to take Harry," Dumbledore said, and took out his wand with such dexterity that Harry took a second to keep up once again.

"_Incarceus,_" he cast, at the same time Professor Laverne summoned her medium out. It was a staff of petrified mandragora, and it shone in golden amber. Professor Almerick pulled Harry to him and had his own medium out—a glove woven out of direwolf fur. He blocked Dumbledore's spell with a wrist flick, and sent his own hex. Harry was in awe of how quickly it escalated. Both Hogwarts professors were out of their chairs throwing spells, and his Charms Professor was matching them cleanly with his own countercurses and clever jinxes. Harry wanted to laugh when something that looked like very slipper oil poured over Snape's head and caused him to slip off the ground, bested.

What was more captivating, however, was the sheer amount of magic both of the headmasters were spewing at each other. Dumbledore made a large snake of fire crawl around the spiraling bookcase and come at Professor Laverne from behind, but she was blasting crystals off the tip of her staff, going almost in all directions and tearing the fire snake to shreds. Harry's own magic was singing in his veins, wanting to join the fray.

"ENOUGH," Professor Laverne cried, and a blast of purple magic exploded from her staff and shook the large room, sending books and papers flying everywhere, and causing almost everything to tumble out of place.

"You have insulted the good will of our school by attacking its head, teacher, and student," she said, and circled her staff around her. Large, fiercely-glowing runes popped out of the ground and started circling, and Harry could feel magic everywhere, from a lake, from a nearby forest, from the school's very foundations, trickling rapidly into it.

"_Ego precor meus hospes vox quod abdico nomen Ravenclaw,_" she chanted, and the runs spun swiftly, radiating magic that shook the whole room, and possibly the whole castle and grounds.

Professor Almerick then took him by the shoulder, grabbed Professor Laverne's hand and took out a stone from his pocket, muttering something.

In a flash, Harry felt and saw the world covered in light, and they disappeared, Harry feeling a tug in his belly. The last image he saw was the face of Severus Snape, his eyes boring through him.

* * *

"Harry, wake up," someone said, and, with some effort, Harry pushed himself off the surface he was on—the couch, he had realized, in the Horologium common room—and affixed his glasses to his face. Harry was knackered. They had arrived in the early morning, and he had had almost no sleep, save for the one he had on Giles' broom, and Professor Almerick had pointed out that he was in some sort of heightened magical state, and it was keeping him alert. He had promptly collapsed on the couch in exhaustion, dreaming, once again, of wailing.

He squeezed two fingers into his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and looked at Marie. She was wearing their school robes and a wistful smile.

"You're lucky it's a Monday, Harry," she said. "It was quite a night. Antonio barged into our rooms and told us you had been abducted and Professor Almerick had gone after you."

Harry, his head still in his bed, smiled at the picture. "Did he look knocked in the head?"

Harry never heard Marie giggle, but he did just then, and Harry thought it suited her, despite the round glasses and the bookish character.

"Absolutely. You'll never hear the end of it from Calvin. He wanted Antonio thrown off the Herbology Tower," she said, smiling. "But we have more important matters to discuss."

Harry blinked owlishly at her. "Like what?"

Marie looked at him oddly for a second, then plopped down on the couch next to him. "Well, you never told us you were _the _Harry Potter. You know, the Boy-Who-Lived. I'm surprised I didn't make the connection quickly enough. I got the Daily Prophet along with my mother's owl, and your name was plastered all over it."

"The Daily Prophet?"

"It's a Wizarding newspaper. I'm not subscribed to it, but I sent my mother the names of my journeymen and she must have known," she said.

Marie stared at him for a second, searching him, and Harry sat there and tried not to twitch under the scrutiny. "Harry, my parents are pureblooded Dark wizards. They live in Italy, so they're not that associated with You-Know-Who. But we don't have any allegiances right now. Especially not to that Light Lord Dumbledore, who's currently the only living wizard powerful enough to be called Lord or Lady at this time. So I'm telling you right now, my parents are very interested in you."

Marie smiled patiently at Harry's confused expression.

"Why? Why is everyone suddenly whispering and looking at me like I'm some kind of five-legged monkey? I don't really know—no one's told me about this Boy-Who-Lived business—I mean, I've only heard of it last night. My grandfather hasn't said anything about it, so I figured he didn't know …"

Marie's eyes widened a fraction. Does he really not know? How couldn't he? Everything that had happened to him—couldn't anyone have told him in those eleven years of how he saved the Wizarding World?

"Well, Harry," Marie finally said, filing that information for use later, "they call you the Boy-Who-Lived because you survived the Killing Curse."

Harry paled. "The Killing Curse? One of the Unforgivables?"

"Yes," she answered. "It was my father who told me of the stories. He said when you were a baby, the Dark Lord You-Know-Who wanted you killed for some unknown reason, and found you in hiding."

Harry listened raptly, and Marie just plunged in with something she thought Harry already knew. "You parents were murdered by him when they tried to protect you, and went to murder you in your crib. But then some feat of magic happened, and you rebound the curse, returning it back to You-Know-Who and vanquishing him. Believe me, Harry, every kid has heard of the baby who ended the wizarding war, and the most powerful Dark lord of all time."

Harry looked shaken, but nodded as Marie went on to continue.

"Some man named Sirius Black, a close friend of the Potters, had been the one to betray your whereabouts, and got sentenced to Azkaban prison for it. After that, nobody had really heard of you."

Sirius Black. Dumbledore had mentioned him when they were in the Ministry, and he resolved to try and find more about the man. He didn't allow himself to hate the man, but it was there, trying to boil into existence. As for his whereabouts after his parents' deaths, Harry had an inkling as to what had happened after.

"I got sent to my Muggle relatives," he said quietly. "My only living relatives. My Mum's Muggleborn, and she had a Muggle sister, who was my Aunt Petunia."

He didn't like to recall it at all. Ever since his birthday when he disappeared and got sent to Potter Manor, he had buried the memories into himself.

"But now you've resurfaced, and in Ombra, no less," Marie finished. "And you have this Wyllt business on your tail."

Harry groaned, and hugged his legs to his chest, huffing. He was so tired. Everything was a lot to take in. Why couldn't he have left the Dursleys sooner and be given at least a year to get accustomed to the wizarding world, to know the story of his parents, and the war?

Marie looked at him understandingly, and put a hand on his shoulder. "You know, Ombra's tradition always courses through each student. A journeyman never betrays a fellow journeyman in times of need. We're here for you, Harry. Antonio and Sienna-and Calvin, though he almost always doesn't show it. He doesn't like you because you get all the attention. I think I really do understand him now," she said, patting her pocket where a piece of parchment was.

Harry smiled at her in thanks, but their talk was interrupted when Sienna appeared from the Horologium doors, winded from what seemed to be a run, looking at the both of them while she panted.

"Harry, Marie," she said. "I was in the library researching, and there were quite a lot of use there, doing work, when all of a sudden—it just appeared. We didn't know what it was or where it could have possibly led to—"

"What is it?" Marie interrupted, her eyes scanning Sienna, as if she had the answers on her.

"A door. A giant, steel door appeared outside of the Dusk Library," she said finally. "You need to see it. It's _huge, _and there are thousands of runes woven into it."

Harry and Marie exchanged a look, and took off from the couch to follow her.

* * *

Harry didn't want to believe it, but it was in front of him, the door that he had been dreaming of every since he saw it that rainy night. Two huge, dark green steel doors that arched at the top stood in the hall outside the Dusk Library, surrounded by a crowd of students. Some of them were trying to open it by means of spells, with no one really succeeding. Some professors had arrived at the same time Harry, Marie and Sienna did, looking at the structure in awe.

There was a lot of muttering as to its origins and contents, but Harry could make no mistake that it was that door that led into the sickly green chamber where the woman was bound.

When Harry stepped into the crowd, someone had spotted him, and immediately a new bout of whispers began.

"Hey it's that Wyllt kid—"

"Harry Potter—he was spotted in the British Ministry—"

"—abducted by class Aquila—"

"Is he _really_ the Boy-Who-Lived? I could've sworn he'd be better-looking—"

"He's so little!"

"The Boy-Who-Lived _and _a Wyllt descendant—you have got to be kidding me—"

"—killed You-Know-Who—"

"Every Death Eater _hates _him—"

"Why is he here? Did he make this door appear?"

"—Mum says he's powerful—"

"—survived the Killing curse—he must be Dark—"

"—yeah that scar, I see it!"

When the whispers had turned into full-blown chatter, Harry had had enough and ran from the scene, knocking past Professor Almerick and Professor Marjoribanks, who protested in annoyance.

He ran through halls, trying to just get as far away as possible, not minding where Ombra took him. He felt his magic flaring again, like it did down in the clearing, and thought he saw himself crackle and spark with magic. He couldn't get away, still hearing whispers from every portrait and painting he saw of gossiping courtiers and gallant knights, of scribes and priests and commoners and sellswords.

Finally, he reached a dead end, a balcony of sorts opening into a view of the Ombran grounds. He hadn't even realized he had climbed a few floors. He just slumped down against a wall and stayed there, trying to make himself a small as he felt at the moment. He hadn't noticed he was crying either, and when he did, he just cried even more, and tried to wipe them with the sleeves of his robes from yesterday.

He felt silly for being in tears, but he really was upset that people couldn't leave him alone. It was daunting to be suddenly thrust into so much attention and scrutiny, to have so much of the things happening around him suddenly depend on his actions, when not two months ago nobody noticed him, and didn't give a damn about his business. Harry realized he had gotten used to being ignored, learned to love it, really, and had already trained his whole identity into a solitary way of living.

It was all too much. He missed being a freak. He wanted to be that person, the scrawny, good-for-nothing boy who didn't have to know about his parents' deaths and didn't need to prove to others that he was his true self. Back then he had one name instead of three, and he shook in the memories of that past, reveled in it as it played in his head. The scrubbing of floors, the gardening, the beatings—

"Harry," someone said, and he jumped nearly a foot from where he was sobbing and shaking. He looked up, and saw that it was Professor Almerick, looking from the balcony entrance with eyes of concern. Harry only found pity in them. He shook his head fiercely. He didn't need to be looked at like that. It was just another look among all the others, and it terrified him just like the other pairs of eyes.

"N-no, p-please," he sobbed. "Don't-don't l-l-look …" he pleaded. He tried to curl further into himself, burying his head in his arms and cowering. He flinched violently when a hand came to rest on his shoulder. Memories flashed.

_A big hand, a brutal hand, closing in on both of his shoulders and pinning him to a bed._

_A belt. A loud zipping noise. The acrid smell of alcohol and sweat._

_A punch and a slap. The pulling of his hair._

_His resounding cries, it was so, so painful—_

"Harry," Professor Almerick's voice cried, "Harry! It's me, it's me, don't—please don't cry, I'm here. I won't hurt you—"

But Harry cried still, and the memories still flooded, memories that he'd rather just forget. He wanted to claw out of the professor, who was fighting to keep him from struggling by hugging him tightly, but he also wanted to bury himself in the warmth and just cry, and thrash, and just collapse and rest and just fade after everything else.

Professor Almerick struggled to calm Harry, his magic lashing and materializing into blades, whipping at his back and leaving cuts on his arms and face. He flinched, but didn't cry out because he had to calm Harry down. The magic from the boy swelled, resonated and thrummed loudly, pulsating in waves and running down to the forest and through the castle walls. Ricky was half in awe and half in dread as to what he was witnessing.

It was all in the boy's mind. The professor recognized the signs of an anxiety attack, and he thought it wouldn't bode well for a young wizard as magically gifted as Harry. He ignored the pain of the cuts and wounds, and just held Harry down, trying not to be as forceful, but rather a firm, stable body to hold onto. Harry had reached a point where no amount of calling him back would return him, and Ricky just weathered the attack along with Harry.

The magic died down, and Harry's sobs turned from erratic gasps to silent hiccoughs, the tremors his body made turning into small twitches. His fists were tightly curled around Professor Almerick's wet and blood-soaked shirt, and he was calming down, his face in the crook of Ricky's neck. It broke the professor's heart to see one of his favorite students have a mental breakdown, and in a way he understood the pressure. An eleven year old could only handle so much, and Harry, as far as Ricky knew, was not normal. He was a wizard of potentially great power, who had lived under many predicaments ranging from mysterious to great to unfortunate. Those students outside the Dusk Library where almost in a frenzy around him. It was slightly disconcerting how much famous—or notorious-Harry suddenly got after the Boy-Who-Lived news blew into the public.

When Harry's breathing evened and he fell unconscious, Ricky sighed and took him in his arms, carrying him securely. He tried and almost succeeded in avoiding students as he made his way towards the healer's sanctum, being as delicate and gentle as possible to the boy in his arms. Almost, because he ran into one of Harry's journeymen, who looked at them in suspicion and alarm.

"What happened?" the boy asked-more like demanded. It was Balsagoth, the imperious, bratty kid.

"This is none of your concern, Mr Balsagoth. I urge you to look away and tell no one of what you saw," Ricky replied calmly.

"None of my concern-Har—Potter's my journeyman!" he said, glaring at him. "And of _course _I'll tell someone of what I saw. I'll tell Doctor Paracelsus—"

"There won't be a need, Mr Balsagoth," Ricky sighed impatiently. This kid was in the way, and Harry might have injured himself while struggling. "I will tell your adviser myself, when the time comes."

Balsagoth glared at him distrustfully, but then dropped it. "All right. But I'm not leaving him with you. Not until Healer Thisbe arrives."

They entered the sanctum, and Balsagoth peered at his drying wounds with frank curiosity. Ricky had never thought he could be as annoyed with any student as he was then. He just resolved to stare at Harry's unconscious form as he slept on one of the bed, hoping the boy's all right.

_I doubt it_, he thought. _He's in for a world of trouble._


	7. The Second Letters and Newsprint

**Note: **Aside from the reviews, I humbly thank all of you for considering following this story and/or including it in your favorites. The little emails I get with the notifications are an amazing part of my day. Thanks. I love you all.**  
**

This is a short one. Another break. The long one after will follow the other journeymen during Harry's spell exhaustion.

* * *

**Break 2: Letters and Newsprint**

_**The Sunday Prophet**_

_**October 6, 1991**_

_**Front Page**_

_**The Boy-Who-Lived, Spotted at the Ministry**_

_Earlier today, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement reported a breach in the Ministry vicinity at around 2:30AM at one of the Department of International Magical Cooperation's receiving rooms. Five wizards have been apprehended when Aurors went to investigate the unauthorized use of the room. Selena Swinton of the sixth Auror division making rounds in the Ministry comments, "I saw him. Dumbledore. It couldn't have been anyone else. He was going to leave when we arrived in the scene, and he was with a boy. We overheard them talking before we made the break into the room. Said something about claiming a reward for the Boy-Who-Lived."_

_This reporter has included an article on the promulgation of a bounty by the Ministry of Magic, made effective last week, for the safe return of Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, on page 4a._

_The five wizards in question were all of similar ages—between sixteen to seventeen years—and most certainly still in school. The crests on their school robes however do not indicate any known Wizarding school under the European sector of the International Confederation of Wizards, prompting the Ministry's International Magical Cooperation Department to take action._

_One of the other Aurors in the scene that night, Nymphadora Black Tonks, notorious metamorphmagus and possibly one of the most promising in the Magical Law Enforcement Department's Auror Program, confirms the identity of Albus Dumbledore in the scene, yet could not believe just yet that it was Harry Potter the Headmaster of Hogwarts School was with._

_The Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock Dumbledore remains unavailable for interview and a statement. Under Ministry custody, the five students are to be questioned sometime this week by the Wizengamot, on accounts of securing the exact identity of this school …_

* * *

_**The Daily Prophet**_

_**October 8, 1991**_

_**Front Page**_

_**Hogwarts' Ravenclaw House Disappears—Ravenclaw Tower Magically Closes Shut**_

_In an astounding turn of events, as reported from many different accounts of students and staff, one of the four houses of the famous Wizarding school Hogwarts, established by celebrated witch Rowena Ravenclaw, disappears from existence—that is, each sigil, crest, symbol and any other indication of Rowena's magic in Hogwarts has departed the castle._

"_It was awful," cried one student, "we were in the tower when the whole castle shook, and the walls, floor and ceiling started to glow—we actually felt the magic being yanked away from us, magic that made us feel at home in the tower and connected us somehow …"_

"_After that, the familiar blue and bronze eagle of Ravenclaw started dissolving from everything it was on, and the colors in the tower started draining. We didn't notice it before, but when that certain magic left the tower—it just felt so empty and barren."_

"_Anything that acknowledged the existence of Ravenclaw house was gone from the school—the hourglasses containing the sapphires for house points, the banners strewn around the school …"_

_Students were in mixtures of panic, indignation and fear as the magic forced them all out of the tower, and the doors with the eagle knocker turned into a bleak expanse of wall._

_Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Filius Flitwick, Ravenclaw head of House and Charms Professor remains unavailable for comment._

_Firsthand accounts of students during the night the event took place on page 4a._

* * *

_**The Daily Prophet**_

_**October 9, 1991**_

_**Front Page**_

_**Albus Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy Issue Identical Statements on Existence of Secret School**_

_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, issued a statement earlier today regarding their findings on questioning the five students involved in the Department of International Magical Cooperation Department break-in last Sunday._

_At around the same time, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy spoke at a gala occurring in Whitehall, regarding the existence of a school called Ombra School of Magickery, a speculation shared by the Light Lord himself. Insiders have confirmed that the two wizards have not conspired to issue the statements, yet the contents of their speeches seem to prove otherwise. Outline of the speeches are written in detail, page 4a._

_In a not-so-unconnected event, Albus Dumbledore, along with Filius Flitwick, has issued a following statement regarding the disappearance of the magic of Rowena Ravenclaw from Hogwarts' grounds and castle. Albus Dumbledore, in an astounding turn of events, has declared a new evil burgeoning in the Wizarding World, the existence of a school training witches and wizards in the Dark Arts called Ombra School. _

_In his statement,it is said that a woman who has declared herself headmaster of this Dark school, along with a shady faculty member, infiltrated Hogwarts Sunday night after the events of the Ministry, and made open threats towards the school, unless the condition was fulfilled that the newly found Harry James Potter was to be returned into their custody. The headmaster, seeking the compromise unjust, sought to protect Harry Potter—along with his faculty, deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall and tried-and-released Death Eater turncloak and Potions Master Severus Snape—but to no avail. The woman, who has named herself Laverne Montmorency—a declaration Albus Dumbledore considered a sham—used ancient Dark magic to rid the school of one of its founding Houses, and subsequently escaped the castle with the Boy-Who-Lived._

_The Light Lord has since then declared open war against this school, promising to rid the Wizarding World of the taint and corruption the school spews. Information about the school has been scarce to nothing, but it is currently undergoing intense investigation by the Ministry Departments International Magical Cooperation and Magical Law Enforcement._

_On the complete statements of Albus Dumbledore and Filius Flitwick and their analyses, page 4b._

_On theories regarding Ombra School and Laverne Montmorency, page 5a._

* * *

_Marie,_

Your talk of this Bal royal intrigues me. The last wizarding royal line, that is, the Balsagoths, have been infamous for being tyrannous in their reign. Their being unjust politicians justifies their being the last line of royals to have wizarding blood. And yet you say a boy your age has been recognized by Ombra as Balsagoth? I have your father looking into it as I write this.

Information as highly prized as this must surely be kept a secret, until such a time comes when our family could make great use of it. These royal wizards had stood at a very fragile precipice of being lauded as well as scorned by purebloods and lowlings. A great reveal to the Wizarding World must surely cause unmitigated chaos. Things will be revealed in time, but until then, earn this boy's trust and companionship, just as Ombran students are advised to do with their journeymen.

There's been talk in the pureblood balls and parties about a certain Wyllt coming into Ombra's ranks, belonging to class Horologium, a class, I believe, that you also belong to? What word do you have about this boy? Why haven't you updated me? Whether he is a pretender or not, the elites have been stirring. Inform me of anything immediately.

_With love and regard,  
Your Mother, Hyperia_

* * *

_My daughter,_

You leave me no choice. You have disobeyed me for the last time. End this farce, or you will regret ever having defied me.


	8. The Aftermath

**Note: **Please correct any mistake I made in writing this, even the ones which are discontinuous with the information I've given out in the previous chapters. ehehe. I tend to not archive things that I should. I usually just go back to the chapters I've already posted and look up the info there. Anyway, this is largely an Antonio chapter, with parts of Calvin and Marie. Woo.

Also, when I say Brittany, I mean Brittany, France. It _has_ been referred to as Little Britain, however, so you're not entirely amiss, _Seeing Sasha_. But thanks for the heads up anywayon the misspelled words.

**Chapter 6: The Aftermath**

Antonio left the confines of the healer's sanctum in a sullen manner, opting to go back to the common room for some peace. All around him people were talking about Wyllt this and Boy-Who-Lived that, how the boy has brought chaos to Ombra and exposed its magical secrets to the world.

Antonio, of course, thought it was a world of bollocks to begin with. It was class Aquila who tried to take Harry to the British Ministry. Harry didn't willingly go—Antonio stopped mid-thought—well, he did, but he didn't knowingly get into the kidnapping. He didn't know it would subsequently lead to the threat of Ombra's secretive valley being put to public light.

He hated a lot of things about the situation. One was how Harry turned up unconscious the day after, with the healer diagnosing his status as spell exhaustion. He hated how he couldn't talk to Harry at the moment, to ask him how he feels, to reassure him that things will be all right.

Another was how people seemed to have drawn out multitudes of conclusions and impressions regarding Harry, when none of them have really gotten towards getting to know him. Antonio prided himself in being a friend to Harry, yet he himself knew almost nothing about the boy, reclusive and taciturn though as he is. But he knew enough to say that Harry was a selfless, kind person, and people should know better than to judge based on public opinion.

Of course, it did hurt a little bit that Harry hadn't trusted him enough to tell him he was the Boy-Who-Lived, though looking back on it now, it couldn't have been any more obvious. Harry _had _been secretive with everyone regarding a lot of things, so Antonio just thought along those lines to lessen the sting of not being told.

He was flying one afternoon, trying to clear his thoughts of everyone else, when, to his surprise, another form appeared next to him. It was that flyer, Davos, and he was grinning at him.

"I didn't know you can fly," he yelled, piercing through the wind whirring through them.

"I've had a lot of practice!" Antonio answered back, with equal fervor. As if to demonstrate, he twisted some degrees left and dove, plummeting in a fast counter-clockwise spiral. It was disorienting, but Antonio focused on where up and down was, and squinted his eyes to protect them from the cold wind, and pulled out from the dive a few feet off the ground, whooping in exhilaration.

He was wide-eyed when he found out that Davos had followed, pulling off a flawless feint, looping mid-dive and coming out of it smoother than what his brother could pull off. Antonio was floored. But then, he let out a booming laugh, and they smiled twin grins at each other.

"Amazing! You're just as good as they say you are!" he cried, laughing as the wind made his clothing stick to his front.

"Am I?" Davos questioned, smirking. "I think you could be better, Exupery."

Antonio glanced at him in bewilderment.

"I knew your brother, the one in the Toreros," he yelled over his shoulder as he zoomed past Antonio. "All you Exupery brothers look alike. I took one look at Tiago Suarez and knew he was using a false name."

Antonio thought this over, looping in a lazy circle. Davos spun along with him and looked him over.

"You wouldn't happen to know how to Rok fight, won't you?" he asked. "Your brothers Gerardo and Tiago have legendary status in this school as premier Roks."

Antonio smiled, flushing in pride for his brothers, but shook his head nonetheless. "I know how to fly, 'sall. Don't know much about tactical spells."

"But you have Battle Magic. I saw you coming out of that class with one of my acquaintances, one of our applicants in the Mountain Roks."

Antonio wondered when had Davos seen him, but then returned to the matter. The Mountain Roks—Antonio knew every member in the little club this year by heart. He just nodded.

"Then why don't you try your hand at applying for the Mountain Roks? You seem to be a passable flyer. That is, if you have what it takes to see it through." He said, smirking at the boy.

Antonio scowled. "If I did, I would have to make sure I finished the process 'till the end. But it wouldn't matter. You Mountain Roks ask too much of your potential members."

It was true. He was listening to the same boy Davos saw him with—the one he had become quick friends with named Rafael—whine about rigorous training hours and spellcasting. It would hamper his grades surely, and would cut down the steady stream of privilege points he had been earning for Horologium.

But then again, Tiago and Gerardo had been Mountain Roks. Even Ramon, Marcos and Alberto had been part of the broom fighting club, an organization that extended until even after Ombran school life. Members of the group often kept each others' names after graduating, and have made life-long friendships and connections that helped them in their chosen paths and callings in the Wizarding world. It was only his eldest brother Amadeo who wasn't affiliated with the Mountain Roks, not really being interested in matters such as broom flying and games.

Antonio had grown up with stories about spectacular Rok fights, like that time when Marcos had a very interesting two-on-two against a couple of elven girls, partnering with his girlfriend at the time, and subsequently ending up breaking up with that girl and dating the two elves both at once, or when Gerardo, in his third year, took out a seventh year by taunting him about his bucked teeth, and overgrowing said teeth and besting him as he went off-balance.

He eyed Davos apprehensively, weighing his options. He then sighed, and threw the older boy a tentative smile. "When can I sign up?"

* * *

Entering the common room, Antonio plopped on one of the overstuffed couches with a sigh, and took out his letter from Gerardo. He skimmed past it again. It outlined the contents of the Daily Prophet following the events that took place last Sunday, after Harry's capture and their Apparition into the Professor Almerick's private rooms. It also told him in detail about how everyone was doing, especially his father Lucero back in Brittany and the French Ministry.

Of course his father would catch a whiff of a war and immediately try to wedge himself into the feud. Antonio had already expected some sort of outrageous reaction from his father regarding a declaration as public as Dumbledore's. But with too little information, he doubted that his father would act rashly. He would feel this new battlefield out, first, and then decide which side to support and which side to devastate.

He just wished that his father wouldn't cause so much dissent this time, and bring along the whole of the French purebloods into a full-blown catastrophe. The last time he did that, ties between British and French wizards thinned, and the French Wizarding World grew less trusting of every other Wizarding nation.

He wondered if his father would ever remember his glory days in the school, and seek not do anything against it. The chaos in Ombra was muted but brimming, everyone tense with anticipation as to how the headmaster and the staff would handle the situation. For many years Ombra has remained a secret school, training only wizards and witches it deemed worthy of receiving its gifts of ancient knowledge. Antonio's ancestors and siblings were all from Ombra, and Antonio was well beyond relieved and delighted to have been made worthy. His knowledge in Astronomy had been lauded even before he made it into Ombra, yet going into the school made all that he knew near-obsolete. Ombra was a secretive school because it taught both ancient, forgotten magic, and newly-developed ones as well, that having just anyone given the privilege to access these troves of information was sure to cause mayhem.

One thing was sure, though. Antonio was glad for immediate expulsion of the five students from class Aquila, and the headmaster's announcement one morning at breakfast informing everyone that it was their mistake that caused the reveal and not Harry's. That would take some blame off of Harry's back. Antonio didn't doubt the boy would be as guilty as a murderer when he came to, blaming himself for this chaos.

He found himself thinking of the boy as he did. He eluded Antonio so much, that he often wondered how the two of them, who had more or less the same interests and mental age, had grown so different in personality. He didn't understand how Harry could be so determined and focused at times and then completely selfless to the point of docility at other times. Antonio wanted to get to know him more, and hopefully get it into the dark-haired boy's head that he could be trusted with any problems or thoughts he had, that he would listen and sympathize or cheer him up if he needed it.

* * *

When Harry had disappeared, Marie's first thought was to run after him to try and see how he's reacted to the door, but Professor Almerick had barred her from following without an explanation, going after Harry himself.

At that point Marie didn't understand why the professor held her back, until the time when news got around that Harry was in the healer's sanctum getting treated for wounds, and that prior to that, some students saw a very bloodied Professor Almerick carrying him into the sanctum.

She then put things together in her head, in that quick way she usually did. Harry was diagnosed with spell exhaustion, meaning he must have used vast amounts of magic, enough that he even expended some of the magic in his core. Added to that was the huge rush of magic that burst through the walls of Ombra, and Professor Almerick's subsequent wounds. Harry could only have caused that magical outburst, and the professor somehow bore the brunt of it.

How powerful was Harry, to have caused such great power reverberating through Ombra's thick, magically fortified walls? Marie had research topping her list of priorities, and she knew the topics she would start with in the Dusk Library. She would go through periodicals on anything concerning the Boy-Who-Lived and the night when he defeated the Dark Lord, and through other, more ancient tomes regarding bursts of extreme magical power.

A few days after the release of new Prophet papers—there was always someone during breakfast now who had an accessible copy—Marie thought the school had gone mad. The purebloods didn't know how to react to the open hostility Dumbledore had stated against Ombra. Most of them were neutral, and very much powerful and influential, and Marie had silently aggrieved that there would be a huge power shift in the months to come after this declaration. Students and their corresponding families would either ally themselves with the Light and hide their true identities as being connected to the school, or remain true and fight for the school's principles.

Like everyone in the school, she thought that Dumbledore's accusation of the school being a Dark school was a complete sham, but not for the reasons of the public. Everyone thought it was bogus because of the equality and duality the Ombran codes suggest, where both Dark and Light Arts are taught, both Dark and Light wizards allowed to coexist, along with Dark and Light half-creatures. But Marie thought of something else.

Despite the codes, Marie had always thought that the very nature of Ombra was somewhat Dark, with its secretive system and the way the curriculums and the faculty subtly favor Dark forms of magic. She had noticed not too long ago how every lesson seemed to be geared towards a more applied version of teaching methods, how everything seemed to be more practical than theoretical. And more often than not, there were always demonstrations of how to use certain knowledge during fights, as if the school was preparing for some kind of battle.

She noticed this in her Runes and Glyphs class in particular, when her professor had veered away from teaching practical glyphs into more offensive, aggressive ones. Marie was, of course, astounded with the capabilities of drawing rune circles and utilizing them for battle purposes, yet it still niggled at the back of her mind how different her curriculum was from how it was years ago when her sister was a still student in Ombra and not a professor.

Despite that, the week without Harry was, no doubt, a perfect opportunity to work harder in class and earn more privilege points for Horologium. She sought to do just that, excelling in her classes like never before. She often tried to brainstorm on things that could help improve her glyph-inscribing—like solving the problem of how wizards always seem to take time inscribing their runes onto the floor, or how fragile the wizard and the runes were during the inscribing itself.

She thought about her contract with the higher beings in the Dome, and often wondered when she would be able to fulfill them. If she gained her medium, she could figure out a way to solve these problems.

She had read up on the mysterious topic of the Dome as well, and found scarce tomes and scrolls on it. The Dome was a mysterious object that almost no one ever chose to write on, for fear of retribution from the higher beings, but for those who did put their experiences into passages in books, Marie had found out that the Dome was in itself all-knowing, and could see into the future. It often knew how a person would achieve some sort of self-actualization in time, and geared the contract towards overcoming an obstacle in that person's life that is a huge hindrance to achieving it. Marie wondered how some of the students in Ombra have media at such early stages in their lives, and how she could fulfill her contract quicker. She then strived to study more about every class and Harry Wyllt-Potter and the purebloods and the history of Ombra and the Dome, to further help her in knowing what she really wanted and needed to know.

* * *

It was so easy going around Ombra Castle during the night. Too few torches lit the halls—some not even throwing enough light to reach the very ends of them—and pillars and arches often made shadows large enough to hide in, to sidle around and behind so as to remain unnoticed. But in particular, it was the utter lack of people patrolling the corridors that made sneaking into the night just so simple.

He knew where he was going—he had been there before, and had seen that ridiculously handsome professor go in and out of there a few times to check up on the boy—the almost as ridiculously immaculate boy—along with his journeymen, that sprightly, adorable kid, and that cool, aristocratic one.

The healer's sanctum. It was always unwarded at nights, with the school having a rule that states anyone should be able to avail of its healing services twenty-four hours a day. Once when he was younger, he injured himself while brewing a potion, nearly slicing his thumb off when the concoction went haywire. His journeyman was in the next room, however, and was able to bring him in the healer's sanctum. Healer Thisbe was grumpy, but obliged to serve.

But tonight, he wasn't injured, and he had but one purpose.

Sneaking into another corridor and passing near some windows where bars of moonlight streamed through, he reached the double doors, the entrance to the place where Harry Wyllt was sound asleep, recovering.

He used a charm to make sure the hinges didn't creak, and pushed the door to peek inside. When he saw no movement in the semi-darkness, he opened the door a little more and sidled in, closing the door silently behind him. It was no hard task locating the boy, all bundled up in sheets, a thick tuft of ebony hair jutting from the top of a pillow. He smiled. The boy was angelic, and truly beautiful …

He had to restrain himself before doing something he was going to regret, and instead, cast the curse.

"_Imperio," _he whispered, and a halo of silver wrapped itself around Harry's head. Perfect, he thought. Just perfect. He then took out a jar from his pocket, where inside a small insect buzzed impatiently. Another muttered charm and the buzzing stopped, the insect seemingly tamed. He smiled, and opened the jar, taking the insect gently with one hand and placing it onto Harry's neck.

It sank its fangs noiselessly, and with the _Imperius _curse he commanded Harry not to scream. The pain would have been excruciating, and would surely have woken up the boy, but it needed to be done to secure his control over him.

Wordlessly, he swished his wand over the insect, and it disappeared without a trace—being coated in a Disillusionment charm and phazing charm—all except for the two fang marks where its invisible fangs were lodged.

He smiled again, partly from having done his little project successfully and with minimal fuss, but more because of the anticipation. Testing it, he took a little instrument from his pocket, a bell of sorts, and made it tinkle. Harry stirred, and turned to face him, still seemingly asleep.

He then placed his lips gently on the boy's and, with another tinkle, the boy responded, and they kissed soundlessly in the night. He grinned almost maniacally as Harry kissed him back.

* * *

Antonio decided to visit Harry in the sanctum one night after a particularly eerie class on Astronomy. He yawned tiredly, replaying the events of the day over in his head. He was awed with how everything seemed to fit with his situation, and was very much disconcerted with what his classes suggested.

Earlier that day in Divination, the class had been sitting in a circle, trying to channel the ley lines deep in the recesses of Ombra, to widen their Inner Eye and try to gain sight into the elusive future. It was a serious job for Antonio to sit meditating, energetic boy he is, and usually his thoughts were somewhere else, hopping from place to place, such as the grounds where rok fights occurred simultaneously, or the huge Herbology Tower where some interesting plant or creature always turned up to surprise you.

That time, however, Antonio was oddly calm, feeling the aftereffects of the magical residue from Harry's outburst, and the similar feeling of magic washing over him that day while he was down at the grounds, when magic exploded and engulfed Ombra.

He had entered a trance, and had seen some blurry visions of a twisted future. He saw a lot of deaths, of a field being engulfed in fire, clouds raining down with lightning, creatures growing out of nothing, and wizards and witches running everywhere, lighting up the battlefield with hundreds of thrown spells. It was chaos.

He saw someone with hollow eyes opening two great, glowing green doors.

And then he saw a woman's face in a deep chasm, laughing soundlessly into a dark night. She was radiating power, and she turned something in her hand and she was gone.

He saw a place illuminated by floating candles, a place he recognized but couldn't name, and he found many people in some sort of ballroom, dancing. He didn't know why he was there, but the vision stuck, and he saw some familiar faces—faces he knew that he recognized, but looking back, couldn't really recall.

He saw a person get hit with a green spell and rise up, unhurt.

He saw the same green spell coming towards him, and then a dark-haired boy leaping in front of him.

And lastly, he saw two people radiating with power, and for a moment time seemed to stop between them, until finally they leaned into each other and kissed.

Antonio was given a lot of privilege points after that class for being able to open his Inner Eye, but he left the class with more questions than answers, and felt more brooding than delighted.

He was shaken and terribly confused after. He couldn't piece the barrage of vague images in his head well enough to work meaning out of them. His Astronomy class had then taken a different approach. When for a month now they have been using telescopes to map the stars and create star charts, their professor had introduced a form of ancient magic that none of the class knew about, called Astral Magic. Antonio went wide-eyed at the demonstrations the professor made, and was eager to know about the secrets of it. What's more, their star charts were to be utilized completely, to better understand and use Astral Magic, so the painstaking hours Antonio put in making his charts as perfect as possible won't go to waste.

When he reached the healer's sanctum, he saw someone sneaking in the dark, closing the sanctum door behind him and running off into the night. Antonio's eyes narrowed instantly, and he made to follow the suspicious person, but instinct told him to check up on Harry first to see if he was all right.

With different kinds of news going on about how Harry this and that, Antonio wasn't surprised that someone—one of Harry's usual tormentors, probably—would pull another cruel attack on Harry's person. Antonio thought that whoever it was scum for trying to do something to Harry while he was down and out, when Harry never really did anything to earn anyone's hate and loathing.

Antonio entered the sanctum silently, and made for Harry's bed in a flash. He quickly took note that Harry was still breathing, and didn't seem physically harmed in any way. He still went to the Healer's quarters however, to alert Healer Thisbe of the intruder.

* * *

A week of inactivity from the unconscious Potter had Calvin almost, but not quite, pulling his hair out in frustration, him resisting the temptation for it was undignified and unbecoming. Two weeks from then would be their report in Light Arts regarding the affinity of compulsive magic towards Light and Dark, and he and Potter had not even discussed what they were going to do. But now that the boy is an invalid, Calvin angrily resigned himself to taking on research work alone in the Dawn Library.

The problem with the school, really, was its education being centered on working with one's journeymen exclusively, and not branching out. Of course, he knew how to solution that, to achieve his own goals. His name was ambiguous enough that, with the right manipulation, he could integrate himself into one of the pureblood social circles without too much suspicion on him.

He had been thinking about it for a while—connecting with other students in the hopes of finding more prolific connections than the overenthusiastic Exupery and the relatively unknown names in Valendia and Cinderwell. With the slow healing of Potter's magical core in the healer's sanctum, Calvin has found less pressure to do well in class (to counterbalance any blunders the speccy boy ever made) and has finally found the time to actually approach one of the pureblood girls in class Pavo, a girl names Verone Moran.

His plan had been simple, yet elegant and devious in its constructs. After that time in the library, Verone had invited him to a small gathering that would take place in one of the Transfigurations classrooms. It would consist mainly of purebloods, and Verone was highly interested in Calvin's opinion regarding magical ancestry. Of course, Calvin fed her nothing but sugary lies, and with that, he had successfully gotten a foot into a different side of Ombra.

He then went over to the sanctum to check on the state of his journeyman and Light Arts partner, only to find the rest of Horologium there, with half-stricken faces. Alongside them were the Headmaster, Doctor Paracelsus, and Healer Thisbe.

"What's going on?" Calvin asked, staring at Potter's unconscious form. Everyone turned to him with varying expressions. The doctor's was oddly calculating, the headmaster stern and immovable, and the healer obstinate. Exupery wore a careworn face, Marie also worried but slightly more present and thoughtful about it, and Cinderwell struggling to keep herself together.

"Mr Exupery came to us saying that Mr Potter was attacked," Doctor Paracelsus started.

"He _was_! I saw someone leaving the sanctum in the dark, when I got down from the Astronomy Tower to check up on him," Antonio piped, looking frustrated.

"We're not doubting your words, Mr Exupery," the Doctor said. "It's just that as far as we're concerned, Healer Thisbe has yet to find anything wrong about Wyllt-Potter, other than, of course, his current state of exhaustion."

"But I saw it," Antonio muttered more to convince himself than the others, and the two teachers made their leave. The healer promptly made the bed around Harry's form and shooed everyone away, threatening to take privilege points.

"What exactly did you see?" Calvin had to ask, as they made their way back up to the dormitories.

"It was night time, but I saw him. A person, sneaking in the dark, coming out of the sanctum," Antonio insisted, but he was becoming less and less convinced about what he had seen as he said it again.

Calvin's first thought was a rather dark, shifty person trying to do something horrible to Potter, and the first thing that came to mind was a set of fangs and pale skin shining in the moonlight. It was a hunch, but he definitely didn't rule out Professor Almerick. He had not seen the professor leave the school in a while, and must have figured that a little blood from a student wouldn't hurt, especially one who was on his way to recovering in the sanctum anyway.

Calvin dwelled on this thought for the whole afternoon, until the time when the supposed meeting of pureblood students was going to ensue. He went over to the corridors near the Dawn Library, and saw Verone hanging outside a classroom with a set of students. She smiled at him as he approached.

"Am I too late?" Calvin asked evenly.

Verone shook his head. "On the contrary. We were waiting for you before entering," she said, then turned to her friends. "Calvin, this is Gordon, Fructus, April and Evera. Everyone, this is Calvin from class Horologium."

Class Pavo was very diverse, in a sense that Calvin thought their magic was very prominent and distinguishable, despite being only a year higher Horologium. He figured out that at least two of them had creature blood, but couldn't quite make out who they were. Gordon was a frightfully big kid who wore a very telltale smirk on his face. April and Evera both looked at him with equally disdainful eyes. The first to greet him, however, was Fructus, a boy who looked very organized, and kind of reminded Calvin of Potter.

"Hi," he said. "Your name is very vague."

It was a rather forward first thing to say, but Calvin didn't expect any less from a bunch of pureblood children who had been drilled with ideals that put blood in the forefront of their social interactions. He instead smiled as vaguely as how they thought they name sounded.

"It is. But I'd rather think Verone here could easily trace my lineage. Very obscure, but very pure, still," he said offhandedly. He had already taken great pains explaining to her his connection to some pureblooded line that was close enough to his name yet ambiguous enough to be hard to validate.

Verone nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly. "I found the book in the Dawn Library. He's pureblooded alright."

Calvin beamed at her. It was very convincing, and Calvin was silently proud of it.

"Then we enter," Evera said. "It's a pity, Balsagoth. Almost all of your journeymen are purebloods. We could use more of them in our little circle."

"All except that Wyllt kid," April said a little too vehemently. They entered the classroom without much fuss, and went over to an unoccupied set of tables. The setup was like it was in any classroom, except that the tables were rearranged to form a circle. No one batted an eyelash at his direction, and Calvin thought that newcomers must not be so uncommon with these people. The students ranged from first years like him, to more prominent, formidable-looking seventh years.

He looked towards the other side of the room and found class Fornax, with their bigheaded leader in front, throwing smirks at everybody. Calvin, for no particular reason, wanted to squish his face in. His name was Julius Rookwood, and he seemed pretty smug and confident about something.

Before he knew it, though, a hush settled into the room as someone entered it. Calvin turned and was surprised to find Professor Marjoribanks making his way over to the teacher's desk. He didn't know a professor held these meetings, but then again, prior to it, Calvin didn't know such meetings even took place. The professor wasted no time going into the heart of matters, as Calvin expected.

"We are gathered here today to discuss two things," he said, letting his resounding voice settle over and determine the tone of the whole meeting.

"The first is this foolish declaration of war by one Albus Dumbledore over Ombra," he said, and hushed murmurs bubbled into existence. He held up a hand, and all was silent again.

"This of course, is connected with our second agenda: Harry Wyllt-Potter, who has knowingly endangered the school," he said his words evenly, yet Calvin felt the weight in them. The students looked collectively indignant, as if Potter had been the cause of every other bad thing that has happened to each of them. Calvin expected this of them, because he knew that for most of them, Ombra has become a home, a sense of comfort and belonging.

"I say we file a petition to get him out of here," one student said resolutely, to the approving murmurs of the group.

"Petition, schmetition—let's haul him out in the night and end this stupid tension!" Another said in heat. They all started to chatter excitedly, talking about possible plans to get rid of Potter, and Calvin felt a little torn, despite feeling openly hostile towards Potter. He was still his journeyman, and anything that could happen to Potter would surely affect him one way or another.

The professor let a crack pierce the air from his wand, and all went silent. "We will not complicate the matter by getting rid of the boy. Ombran law keeps him here. As long as the Dome deems him fit, then he is an Ombran student until he graduates."

"But what about us?" one student cried. "What if this Dumbledore decides to attack us? What if he gets a list of the students here and targets our families?"

Professor Marjoribanks shook his head. "Albus Dumbledore is a Light Lord. Should he decide to take matters into his own hands, he would not dare to openly attack families, especially neutral, pureblood families, not with this followers of this once alive Dark Lord still rumored to be at large. He would be covert about it, as to not taint his reputation as a leader of the Light, to not ostracize purebloods to the Dark."

"But he would do something," someone said insistently. Calvin saw that it was Evera. "Many students here have connections outside. Someone could leak information out of this place that could very well be Ombra's downfall. We can't take Dumbledore's declaration lightly."

"We can't," Professor Majoribanks agreed. "Which is why there needs be action. A form of retaliation. Some kind of movement to dissuade Dumbledore and his connections from harming the school," he said evenly. "Which is why I propose that a coalition of purebloods should be made outside of the school, consisting of the families of Ombran students. If we group together and declare our group publicly, then Dumbledore would be less inclined to attack, seeing as our families are very prominent in most parts of Europe. He would not want to ostracize all of us, for he knows that would be a grave loss to his cause."

Calvin understood. In grave times, wizards have banded before in history to overpower a common threat. This would be no different. No one could yet surmise what Dumbledore was capable of. For all they knew, he was the mad all coot the papers sometimes make him out to be, and this plan wouldn't work as well as it could, and the Light Lord would simply attack the place anyway.

"We will then assume that information about our school has already been leaked out, if it hasn't been, yet," the professor said. "So everyone should be on guard for anything suspicious. Ombra's safety is largely dependent on its existence. So the more people know of it, the easier it is to penetrate. The portals are easy to manipulate, and Ombra Valley has more secrets than anyone could ever find in a lifetime."

Everyone settled into mutters as they took in the words. Calvin calculatingly stared at the professor, who seemed quite sure of everything he was saying.

"We will now discuss Harry Wyllt-Potter," the professor declared, ending the chatter. Everyone's faces were mixed expressions, but Calvin could define some sort of common hostility in them.

"As you all know, Harry Wyllt-Potter's identity as being the Boy-Who-Lived has been confirmed. He is, in essence, a scion to the Light, and a prominent piece in the war between Dumbledore and the followers of You-Know-Who. Not only that, but he is also an heir to a very distinguished pureblood line in the Potters, and has various seats all across Europe's political institutions. I daresay that his name carries a weight in it heavier than any of yours," he said offhandedly, and most of the purebloods bristled at the insinuation.

"So what? He knowingly endangered the school, and the reputation of the purebloods. Dumbledore labeled everyone in Ombra and their families as Dark!" said a student that Calvin recognized as Coleen Dornish. Her declaration carried some weight, seeing as she had been an apprentice for two years now, and her name was not to be taken lightly. The Dornish were powerful Light wizards who took pride in their sense of right and wrong. It was their self-binding principles and magical power that secured many of their political seats in Northern Europe. Her uncle holds two seats in the Wizengamot alone.

"Be that as it may, Miss Dornish, Harry Wyllt-Potter is but a child. Mistakes such as this are easy to commit at his age. We are just very unlucky that he is very well-known, and any simple mistake he makes gets blown into uncontrollable proportions," the professor said. Calvin was surprised. He thought that the professor was against Potter, but hearing him describe the boy made him reassess both the older wizard, and Potter.

If he put it that way, Potter did seem a little bit too naïve about a lot of things. The boy could be easily manipulated by any unsuspecting intellect.

"I have reason to believe that whoever is causing Mr Wyllt-Potter much distress is in this very room," he said boldly, and everyone turned to each other to murmur. Some were stupid enough to look a bit guilty, but the others reacted pretty much like Calvin did. In short, no one could really pinpoint Potter's tormentors.

"Hear me this," the professor said darkly. "If anyone here aggrieves Wyllt-Potter to the point of inciting Dumbledore's power, then he or she would be punishable by expulsion and _Obliviation_, as it is written in the Ombran code."

Everyone was silent. Calvin stared hard at the professor, who stood unwavering as he bore varying degrees of looks. There was something very odd about this proclamation, seeing as it couldn't be said that Dumbledore could see what was happening to Potter at any given time. It was as if he was using Dumbledore as an excuse to help Potter.

_But why? What is he aiming for, in aiding Potter?_

The meeting was pretty much dull after that, with the professor and Dornish running over a list of names to owl so that the Coalition of Pureblood Wizards could be born. Calvin wrote his name into a parchment being passed around without much thought, and exited along with the others, with a promise to see Verone again regarding some essays, and to discuss matters of politics with Evera and Fructus.

Calvin didn't really know how to handle the news. More than half of the school was unaware of what took place in that meeting of purebloods, and with a binding secrecy spell placed on all of them, he doubted any of it will get out. One thing's for sure, though—Potter would get tormented less, and their privilege points would not be compromised any longer. Calvin found that he didn't care much about Potter's well-being, but he did want to stay in this school, and if they ended up last in the class rankings, then they were sure to get kicked out. This was some form of relief from studying and working too hard, and Calvin welcomed it.

What bothered him so much, however, was how dark the mood seemed to be between the students of Ombra after Professor Marjoribanks' warning.

* * *

Harry finally opened his eyes, and found near darkness stretching over him. It was raining outside, and the sound of silent wails brought him back. Lightning flashed and plunged the place in white for an instant, with thunder booming in its wake, before taking everything to darkness again.

He breathed silently, trying to think of what had happened. He could so far recall nothing, and rolled to his side. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a pair of glowing eyes staring at him. He covered his mouth to prevent himself from screaming out loud.

"You're awake," Doctor Paracelsus said. He handed over Harry's glasses as he stared intently, and from Harry's position on the bed, he wondered whether the doctor had just been sitting there, staring at him. It made a shiver run down his spine.

"Have you been staring at me like that for a while?" he asked, unable to resist the temptation to. He put on his glasses, and everything formed into a clearer picture.

The doctor chuckled pleasantly at him. "Of course not. I've just arrived. I told Healer Thisbe to contact me as soon as you stirred from your sleep."

Harry rubbed some sleepiness out of his eyes and trained them back at Paracelsus. "What happened?" he asked quietly. "I feel very empty." It was an odd thought, but he did feel rather hollow, as if his whole insides had been scooped up and out of him. Ridiculous, he thought, but the feeling was there.

"You lost a lot of magic six days ago, Mr Potter," Paracelsus said casually.

"Six _days_? I've been here—"he gestured around the place, which he had connected a few moments ago as the healer's sanctum, "—for six days?"

To that, the doctor only nodded. "Do you remember what happened?" he asked patiently.

Harry opened his mouth, only to close it again. He tried to recall, but there seemed to be some kind of blurry part in his mind that he just can't access. It had always been there, he supposed, but now it looked more obscure than ever. He finally shook his head in response.

The doctor sighed, and ran a hand over Harry's forehead, slicking his hair back. It was a very fatherly gesture, and Harry found himself relishing at the small touch. It was so unlike the slimy, alarmingly open touches everyone intentionally or accidentally gave him, and it was a welcome sensation after six days of inactivity.

"It can't be helped, then," the doctor said. "I guess Professor Ricky won't be getting that apology anytime soon."

"Apology?" Harry repeated in confusion. "Did I do something to him?" he asked worriedly.

The doctor shook his head. "Nothing that can't be easily remedied. Do not worry, Harry. What you should be worrying about is the four days of classes you missed, and two days that could have been spent studying and training."

It worked. The bespectacled boy looked frightful, and the doctor chuckled at him once again.

"I'm sorry. I was kidding. Professors Ricky, Evan and I would help you catch up," he said reassuringly. "On top of that, some special training is in order. Some urgent needs to have you as prepared with magic as possible have arisen. You will therefore have extra private classes during the weekends, on top of your weekly tutoring sessions with Professor Ricky."

"I remember," was Harry's reply. Doctor Paracelsus took it for what it was. Harry remembered what had taken place before his magical outburst, but not the outburst itself, nor the things that triggered it.

"It was that Dumbledore, wasn't it? What did he do?" he asked, a little too seriously for a boy his age. Paracelsus was slightly taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor. Harry seemed to have a very pivotal way of conveying his emotions, that one was often caught off-guard whenever he switches tones and expressions.

"It was," the doctor said. "He wants you back, Mr Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived. He believes that the Dark Lord isn't completely defeated yet, and he would want you, a symbol of hope and triumph for the Light, by his side, possibly as a protégé and an ally."

Harry nodded. He was taking things a bit too calmly, in Paracelsus' opinion, yet he chose not to comment on it.

"But I want to stay here," Harry said evenly. He stared at the doctor with conviction. Paracelsus smiled.

"And you will, Harry," he assured him. "And this time, you'll be safer. I promise."

Both of them somehow knew that the promise was empty, but it emboldened Harry's heart all the same, and he beamed at the doctor.


	9. The Imminent War

**Note:** New chapter! This one, like the rest of them, is un-beta'ed. I've sort of lost my plot outline for this fanfic, and am in the process of devising a new one. I've left this alone for so long I don't understand half of what I wrote, but hopefully this new plot track works.

* * *

_She saw, once again, through different eyes. An older person. Wandering the halls. She found the person's thoughts running through hers as if they were her own._

_Stealing into the night was easy, always easy, in Ombra. The castle halls were unwatched. There were corridors where one could hide for days, and halls were one could get lost for days, if they weren't careful. But someone with the knowledge could readily take advantage of these halls, use them to sneak unnoticed._

_An abandoned classroom—the ever ideal spot for any late night rendezvous. Students have sated many frustrations in the hallowed rooms, whether using it for spell practice or other, more sinister pleasures._

_It was one such night where the person's urges would be fulfilled. The plan was laid perfect. All that was needed now was the boy._

_Impatient pacing was done across the dusty floor. Doubt that the plan would falter wasn't allowed to cross the mind. It will be successful._

_A knock came, then. The door was eyed for a moment, then spelled open. The boy stood in the doorway, eyes wide orbs glistening in the near darkness. He was beautiful. The person always thought him a rare find._

_And the magic that thrummed inside him—it was near intoxicating. He could easily make a mistake with this boy, but he had taken precautions not to. _

_It would be the first time this was ever done. The person was giddy with excitement._

_The door was locked, and charmed to notify of any intruders._

_Alone, in the room, with the boy._

_A cloak was unfastened. The boy was disrobed._

* * *

Harry owed the healer one hundred fifty four privilege points. To say that he was devastated about this was an understatement, but he kept a sort of eerie quiet about it. Horologium had no choice but to pay the debt. With eighty three privilege points earned, they still had to pay seventy one points to clear their balance. But even after achieving that, they would be so far behind the other classes, and with exams coming up before the holidays, they feared it would be the end of their school life. By mid-October, they were dead last, at fifteenth place.

"This is absurd," Calvin huffed. They were in the common room, basking in the fireplace's heat. A cold had crept over Ombra that week. And everyone seemed less inclined to leave for any place not warmed by a fireplace or charm. All of them huddled in some sort of thick sweater or blanket. The chill didn't seem to go away despite the warm fire. "We'll be kicked off the school faster than Potter could get himself into another blunder."

Marie, who was scribbling with a quill and scroll on a table, glanced at them. "It's absurd, and backwards," she agreed. She wanted to voice out that Harry had no blame, but she couldn't, because they all knew Harry had been diagnosed with magical exhaustion, and that it really was all due to Harry. They all knew what she was talking about, but again, all kept still. She threw a sideways glance at Calvin, who regarded her silently.

They talked about the meeting Calvin had been to the week before. He thought that, with Marie being a pureblooded witch, the purists wouldn't have minded him sharing inside information, and he needed a different perspective of the way the purists in the school handled Dumbledore's threat.

"Isn't it a bit odd," she had said, "how witches and wizards as powerful as Ombra's professors and practitioners are scared of this threat from Dumbledore?"

Calvin nodded in agreement. Ombra was supposed to be secluded, laden with magics so old that the valley was near impenetrable. That the professors are openly expressing doubt over the security of the school bothered them. And the student body wasn't far behind. Everyone felt the tension brewing between the staff, but no one knew why.

"There must be a reason for their fear. It could be that Dumbledore is as powerful and cunning as a Wizard Lord is, but something else is making them wary." They had lapsed into silence after that, drowning in their own thoughts.

Sienna, who had been quieter as of late, told them of her doing extra-curricular work for her professors in Herbology and Magizoology. It was hard, but fruitful. It earned her twice the privilege points, and gave her more knowledge about magical creatures and herbs.

"I can't wait to start Potions next year," she said in a most wistful tone.

"If we survive this year, that is," Antonio muttered sullenly. He was greatly enjoying his classes at the moment, though no one but Harry really took the time to listen to him whenever he goes to tell them about it. Calvin thought that Divination was a fruitless endeavor and Astronomy a load of 'child's play that only simpering girls would bother with', which Antonio valiantly protested against. Marie's and Sienna's lack of comment to his defense only dampened his mood about his classes even more, but Harry only smiled at him and asked him about it.

So he told Harry about what he'd learned. They had started using weird spells in Astronomy that week, spells that only work during certain times, and under certain celestial spheres. It was very complicated and draining, but Antonio found himself excelling in the spellwork, far above his five other classmates.

He had demonstrated it to Harry one night. "Every point in the sky belongs to exactly one constellation, while at any given time, constellations from twenty to forty can cover the entire hemisphere the wizard is under. Spells are more effective the closer its corresponding constellation is to the wizard's zenith-that's an imaginary point in the sky directly above the person-and weaker as it nears the horizon."

It had been a clear, cloudless night, and the stars were everywhere. "I'm only really able to use northern spells, since Britain's in the Northern Hemisphere," he breathed. Harry could see that Antonio loved gazing at the stars, by the way his attention seemed to drift the longer he gazed into the dotted night sky.

"There—see that? That's Cepheus, King of Aethiopia—you've read of that in those Greek Mythology books you like to look at in the Dusk Library, haven't you? Well, there's this pretty standard spell—"he took out his wand and closed his eyes, muttering a few choice words. Harry couldn't quite catch it—it sounded Arabic.

"_Alderaminus," _he had cast, and his wands tip glowed a bright blue. He had then run the wand along his right arm, trailing it from fingertip to shoulder, and at once the blue glow had wrapped itself around his arm.

"What does that do?" Harry had asked in slight awe. Antonio had grinned at him after, bringing his right fist down to the ground. Dirt had flown as the fist had smashed a crater well into the earth.

Only Harry knew that Antonio was capable of such magic, because he was the only one who asked about it. Antonio told him that he only knew three spells as of that time, but only time could tell how powerful Antonio would get with this new knowledge.

Harry was impressed, but slightly jealous that Antonio had gone so far in his magical training. Harry still only new basic spells from his classes and the books he had finished, and hadn't put too much thought what kind of wizard he would be exactly. It all seemed as if everyone had some specialty. Marie could read various languages and was studying Ancient Runes, while Antonio used his own brand of Battle Magic, owed to his knowledge in Astronomy. Sienna was quickly excelling in Herbology and Magizoology, and could very well identify any living creature set before her with such precise memory.

It was Calvin who he couldn't quite define. He and the blonde had similar classes, and went about their studies in a not too different way. Harry did just as much advanced reading as Calvin did, yet the other boy was too aloof to suggest any inclination.

He had asked Calvin about it once, and was met with an arrogant huff of annoyance.

"Only you would think each wizard had to be labeled, Potter," he said. "Not everyone focuses on just one thing."

Harry wanted to believe that, but the only people he could see fitting into that outlook was Calvin and himself. Harry thought of himself as more of a Light wizard, not because his parents or his heritage had Light ties, but rather because he liked the inherent sense of peace and rightness he felt whenever he practiced Light spells. But he couldn't say that definitively, because there were some Dark Arts that he was very much interested in.

Though he was only a first year, the higher courses of magic piqued his interest—magics such as Elemental Magic, Mind Arts, Necromancy—the list was endless. The last one Harry rarely got any information about, but some students say that wizards and witches who pursue that branch were very secretive about the field of magic, and apprentices to some Necromancers in Ombra were more often out of the valley on some field work than inside the castle studying.

Harry was still being tutored by Professor Almerick, who had seemed less inclined to say anything to him short of instruction, opting to teach Harry in a more applied level than before. He would turn his room into a mini dueling arena, testing Harry on his knowledge of defensive magic.

"Spells can come in various forms. Some are physical projectiles," he turned around and flung a curse that turned into a dark arrow mid-air. _Toxos Circulos. _Harry recognized the spell—it was the one that sent him to the sanctum for the first time. He turned his wand up and _Accio_ed a quill, Transfiguring it into a plank of wood. The arrow drove in deep, and the wood fell to the floor.

"You can counter those with Transfiguration, or with any spell that conjures physical objects."

"And then, there are magical projectiles," the professor said without missing a beat, throwing a jynx. _Tarantallegra. _Harry flicked his wand and a bluish barrier formed, deflecting the spell towards a wall.

"And for those, you use magic-based protection, like _Protego _for single spells and _Haurio _for relentless spells," Harry said. Professor Almerick then fired spells in succession. Harry succumbed in mere minutes, being hit by a well-aimed _Rictusempra._

Harry laughed uncontrollably, yet he wanted to mope or frown or cry. The professor had been less warm about their interactions ever since the incident last week. He wanted to ask about it, but was too shy and scared of what the professor might answer him with. Instead, he bore the tutoring sessions, not letting the professor know of what he was feeling.

Headmaster Laverne and Doctor Paracelsus also tutored him during the weekends, a change that Harry didn't find welcome. Despite learning new things from the professors, he found the interactions forced and coldly formal, as if there were more pressing matters to attend to than teaching him.

Headmaster Laverne wasn't trying to match Professor Agrippa's drone, but she was tutoring him in the subject of History.

"This castle was built on seven pillars, all soaked in ancient magics. It is said that they're deep in the valley, unable to be accessed by the ordinary wizard," she took her tea, which had not been sweetened, onto her lips. Her words were colorless, but still Harry listened.

"Seven pillars, all keeping Ombra aloft," she said, trailing off and looking out to the grounds. Harry was dismissed early that day—the Headmaster told him she had much to attend to. "The fundamental rules of this school our connected to those pillars."

Unlike the witch, Doctor Paracelsus always kept him around more than necessary. They were trying to figure out why somehow, Harry was more attuned to his magic now.

"I'm going to teach you a new spell, Harry," the Doctor said. They were in one of the clearings reserved for practicing Battle Magic, and Harry was slightly giddy with excitement. He was finally going to learn something useful.

"It's relatively difficult to cast, so I won't be expecting anything. But please try your best, regardless," he said, and he waved his wand. Harry took note of the movements immediately—a movement of the hand where the wand tip and the wrist twirled in the same direction, but at different points of a circle.

"_Expecto Patronum,_" the Doctor said clearly, and Harry watched, fascinated, as wisps of white smoke flowed out of the wand. It spun with the wand's circle, swirled and shaped, until it turned into a solid form. When most of the excess smoke dissipated, what was left twitched its ears, stretched its forepaws, and yawned, using its snout to dig at the ground.

It was a bear. Whether it was a grizzly or a polar bear, Harry couldn't ascertain, since all it was made of was specter-like vapor. Harry knew it was staring up at him, and it drew close, its paws making light thudding noises on the ground. Harry stood very still as it took its time sniffing him. It eventually grew uninterested, and started on a slow run around the field.

"Now you cast it," Doctor Paracelsus said, smiling encouragingly. "I saw you looking at my wrist. You've memorized the movement?"

Harry nodded absently, still following the huge bear with its eyes. Without hesitating, he drew his wand and aimed it at the empty air.

"_Expecto Patronum,_" he breathed out.

* * *

Blank. It was what only description he could come up with. The night was blank. It was dark, yes, but the picture was so still and unmoving, that any object with it as background would look out of place.

He was the only thing out of place.

A man standing in the middle of a moor, a reserve under protection of the Muggle state. A sanctuary everyone but the authorities wasn't allowed to be.

There was nothing particular about this spot of earth, except—

There. A shift in the wind, a rift in the stillness, and, seemingly out of nowhere, an owl shooting out of a tear in space. It barreled through the wind as if it made a long, treacherous journey passing through the dimensions, and then steadied itself in mid-air, a parcel at its beak, ready to be delivered. The man let it be.

But he stared at the space where the owl flashed into existence, and smiled.

It was the out-of-place occurrence he was looking for.

A wordless charm that anchored to the earth was cast, and he Disapparated.

* * *

A special meeting. Evan thought it was high time all of them tried to get to the bottom of things, but it couldn't come at a more frustratingly inopportune time. He and Almerick were in the middle of love-making when the call resounded, and he was silently raging inside. It was silent—that is, Evan kept stonily quiet about his opinions.

But this couldn't wait. A meeting at this time of night meant urgency—which most certainly meant that Laverne had finally decided to act. To see fear plainly written on some of the faculty's faces—while in front of the children, no less—was nothing short of ridiculous and slapdash. They were supposed to keep things secret. All of them did, to some extent, but with the way some of them handled classes and other such interactions with the students, they might as well have been wearing placards on their faces.

"You need not look so put-off," Almerick said behind him. Evan glanced back. They were making their way towards one of the staff rooms, their little nightly time to themselves blatantly interrupted by a communication charm from Laverne. _Not stoic enough for Ricky._

Almerick was smiling. An oddity on his quite-recently serious face. Evan always thought that Ricky's features were handsomer schooled in concentration and impassiveness than joy, but he found that he quite missed the vampire's cheerier side.

"You're looking chipper," Evan noted darkly. "Have you decided to tell me what's turned you into ice these days?"

Almerick smiled wider. Evan would not admit that he was glad this recent spell has lifted from Ricky.

"I have not," Almerick said in an apologetic tone. "But I will in due time, once I figure out a way to solve my problem. Or you could find out for yourself."

Evan didn't regard him with a glance, intent was he on getting to the staff room. When they reached the double doors, Evan lifted his hand and knocked two times, knocks which hopefully told everyone who could hear it that he was in his dark mood.

Almerick placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, before dropping it back beside his body.

"Ombra is deteriorating," were Laverne's first words. Evan thought that it frankly set the tone of the meeting. He glanced at the variations of unease that churned in the professor's faces, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He wouldn't stoop to that level simply because he would look arrogant in front of his supposed peers. Only Ricky could see him do silly things like that, and even with the vampire he showed his reactions sparingly.

Of course, the tiny choruses of why's sounded, followed by theories by some of the professors, all related to the supposed fields they were teaching in Ombra. One professor of Magizoology supposed that goreworms were burrowing deeper into the earth and upsetting crucial ley lines and magical foundations, while another on Astronomy thought Neptune's alignment with Io was suspiciously churning the energy in the Valley.

Evan watched everyone try to give input, before shifting in his seat. Everyone turned to him expectantly. Evan should be surprised at how easily he commanded attention, but really, he would only be lying to himself. He thrummed not with magical power nor influence brought about by name or money—rather his command came solely from his presence, by the way his words made absolute sense in times of deliberation, and that was that. Beside him, Ricky tightened his hold on his arm. Evan read it more as a type of protective gesture than one of restraint.

"I think all of us will agree on one thing—the magic in the Valley is being affected by some force. My suspicion is that even the pillars that supposedly keep Ombra safe are threatened," he said solemnly. They all took the words and diced them, turned them in their heads in contemplation, or tried to make sense of them. Evan found that he didn't care—he had said what he thought, and things ought to be brought to light by Laverne. If the sodding old witch would just quit softening things up for everyone.

In the end, the Headmaster confirmed it, and Evan breathed a long, drawn-out breath through his nostrils that said, _finally_. The pillars were experiencing tension, and there was nothing any of them could do but find out why or how. No one has ever known the location of these pillars, or what magic each of them entail.

"I think it all comes down to Harry Wyllt-Potter," a gruff voice said over the cacophony. It was Professor Marjoribanks. Almerick's hand squeezed Evan's again, which made the Trasfigurations professor's brows furrow almost imperceptibly. He saw that Almerick was glaring—a suspicious, seemingly unprovoked gesture that made the cogs in Evan's mind wheel in wonder.

He had not spent time with the Potter boy except during classes and during those rare times he was with Ricky on weekends when he tutored the boy. He was splendidly bright and optimistic, and rather humble in his talents, a rather stark difference from his grandfather, whom Evan had known to be rather boisterous. It would make sense, he guessed, if Ricky had formed some form of attachment with Potter. _Magic flowed alongside blood, and to a vampire, drinking one would mean inevitably consuming the other._

Murmurs consumed the room. Only Potter's professors had express interaction with him, so information regarding the boy was sparing outside of those wizards and witches. Some professors thought better, but most of them still based their knowledge on what the students know, or rather, what they've formulated about the boy.

There was a moment when questions about Potter fired from one professor to another, each increasingly more absurd than the previous one. His integrity as an Ombran student, his roots, his behavior in class—Evan found it surprisingly irritating how most of those who voiced answers have never even talked to or witnessed Potter behaving in an everyday situation.

"Enough," his partner finally said, with an astoundingly cold contempt behind the word, which earned him expressions of shock from the professors, and a sideways, curious glance from Evan. It was Evan's turn to reel the vampire back. None of them would want one rampaging in a magically locked room.

Ricky shrugged away his stare, but Evan gave his hand a squeeze that told the vampire that they _will _talk about this at a later time.

"I thought it beneath an Ombran faculty member to rationalize, much less to throw around such vulgar generalizations about an innocent boy," he said in a severely reprimanding tone. Evan figured that the idea of the boy sleeping around with older students _did _constitute as a vulgar generalization. Just because the boy has some higher year friends doesn't mean he's doing them any of _those _kinds of favors. It was beyond absurd—it was destructive.

"Then, might you enlighten us on the boy, Almerick? Since you have had the most time spent with him?" Laverne said. There wasn't anything in her tone of voice that suggested something equally vulgar or immoral, and for that Evan was grateful.

The Charms professor nodded. "I, too, think it is coincidental that these effects on Ombra's structure and magic had happened at around the same time the students arrived," he took a cursory glance at Marjoribanks, "though I do not agree that Harry Potter is the direct cause of the wild magic and the foundations' deterioration."

Evan could easily tell with their dubious looks that they didn't believe a word Ricky said, but he sat still, his gaze sweeping casually over the thirty or so other professors. He wanted to hex most of them, for pure entertainment, since their idiocy blocks their judgment too much, but as per usual, he decided against it. He had so many wants that couldn't be fulfilled, but he wasn't put out.

"Harry Potter caused two magical outbursts this year. One near Morgan's Sepulchre, when Harry was abducted, and another here in the castle, when the ancient doors appeared near the libraries. I'm sure most of you have felt the wave of great magic traveling through the grounds more than once this year."

The realization that all of them _did _feel the magic at around those times shocked them all into silence, even Evan, who was as new to the information as everyone was. He glanced at Ricky again, a normal-looking shift of the eyes that, to an outsider, could only mean acknowledgement, but really meant that they _would _be having this talk about Potter, and they would do it soon, maybe after the meeting.

Almerick was unperturbed by the piercing gaze, and instead continued. "If you felt the magic, then you also sensed that it was inherently _Light _in nature, and exuded energy that Light Magic represented—creation, freedom and protection. A far cry from what is happening to the Valley."

Evan never really thought Harry Potter would be anything less than a Light wizard. The Potters were Light-aligned, and even had the resources to convert other neutral magical families to their side. A pureblood wizard or witch with the proper knowledge on the Potters should be able to corroborate this information easily.

That didn't make it any less dubious, however, since some wizards of a certain side have existed, only to defect to the other. One prime example was Dorea Black, born of the Most Ancient House of Black, a house fully-immersed in the Dark Arts. And, if Evan could remember his genealogy correctly, she was Potter's great-grandmother, and husband to Light wizard Charlus Potter. _A traitor to her own._

"Regardless," Professor Marjoribanks said over the tide of whispers that once again ruled over the meeting. "Harry Potter may not be the direct cause of it, but he did bring a distinct change in this school, aside from the apparent wrath of Albus Dumbledore and the students."

Laverne had to agree. Evan eyed her with a look that challenged her into making a wrong decision then.

"We still do not know what is causing Ombra to react in such a volatile manner. I do not think it is Wyllt-Potter's fault, either. Be that as it may, forces are in the works, forces trying to destroy Ombra's very foundations. Ancient magic couldn't easily be damaged, which leads us to think that the cause isn't from an outside source."

The discussion went on as a few more professors offered suggestions, but in the end, the faculty couldn't formulate a concrete enough reason to explain why Ombra was receding.

Instead, Laverne advised them to keep alert regarding any happenings pertaining to outside penetration and changes in the magics surrounding them, and, to Evan's silent approval, to be discreet and silent about the events that are taking place in the school to the students. Laverne had been very particular about how some professors acted entirely too distressed, and she had to chastise everyone.

Afterwhich, Evan allowed Almerick to lead the both of them to their rooms. Evan spared his partner no word until they were in the safe confines of their living quarters, and Ricky kept glancing at him worriedly, as if he were in his youth once again, and was being silently punished for doing something wrong.

When they entered their rooms and secured powerful silencing and anti-monitoring wards around them, Evan chose to be straightforward.

"Your chill was due to Potter, wasn't it? You tell me nothing of him. You try to protect him, even though you know that, as an Ombran professor, I am bound by word to never harm a student."

Almerick's lack of response confirmed it for him. And now, he also knew why he was being kept out of the loop regarding Harry Potter. Evan looked at Ricky's slightly hunched shoulders and defensive stance and sighed.

"Is it because I was a Death Eater?" Evan said, his voice calm as still forest.

"You are, still, Evan," Ricky said with exasperation, as if it was a topic that the both of them had discussed multiple times, without any definite resolution or closure.

Evan nodded at that. "I am, still. But I've turned against Voldemort. You knew that when I became professor. We forego other vows, and are purged of magical oaths when we accept Ombran law into our magic. You also know that _Morsmordre _is ink-black as Dark magic. I can never get rid of this Mark without getting rid of my life as well."

Ricky's silence once again was an answer. He still wasn't trusted.

"I forgive you," Evan said, before anything could happen. Ricky glanced at him in surprise, his eyes shining with emotions. On top of them, brimming on the surface, was resignation. Evan's gaze was understanding and solemn, but was most prominently disappointed. They were lovers, unbound by magic but declared by words. It was saddening how they still haven't achieved complete trust between each other, but they were only four years into their relationship, and hardships were still to be overcome.

"I will tell you," Almerick breathed out, "if you promise not to think of me as a monster."

* * *

Calvin knew plenty of things had changed since Potter's incapacity. Things were going far more smoothly in school than he—or Potter, for the matter—was accustomed to. No severed leather bags and school things spilling onto the floor. No stolen class notes, and no hexes coming from nowhere tripping the boy, or sticking him some place. It made him snort derisively at how openly disappointed Potter looked sometimes, because he couldn't use the countercurses he'd learned. Everyone seemed to be steering clear away from Potter.

Potter read in absolute peace. It was the first time he had spent in the Dawn Library without being in constant guard. Calvin saw him visibly relax, keeping his usual paranoia in place of actual focus, skimming text after text in succession. He looked tired, as he perpetually did, but unlike before, when he looked as if it was normal for him, he looked to be on the verge of a breaking point, as if he had been awake for more than a few days.

Calvin thought better against asking him if he was alright. It was courteous, but Potter would immediately be suspicious, and it would disrupt the fragile dynamic that they had set up, where Harry would read the texts on compulsion and Calvin on spells. It was almost a civil atmosphere, except for the small, contemptuous comments Calvin would fail to filter. Potter wouldn't mind—he was used to it by now—but Calvin would say them anyway, and it would give him some sense of peace.

However, when Harry had promptly dozed off on the boy, Calvin couldn't keep his thoughts to himself any longer.

"Potter," he said in a disdainful voice. Potter awoke, his face jerking away from the textbook it was lying against. He blinked blearily, looking around, and then his sleepy eyes settled on Calvin, who was glaring at him suspiciously.

"Sorry," the bespectacled boy mumbled. He resettled said glasses on his face and then stared at the texts again, before resuming his work.

When the boy leaned forward for a book farther down the table, Calvin saw bite marks on his neck. His eyes narrowed more dangerously.

Bite marks on his neck.

"Have you been reading into the night again?" Calvin asked, in an interrogating tone that Potter mistook as start to another scathing remark.

"No, I don't think I have," Harry answered slowly, warily.

Calvin eyed him. When he said nothing else, Potter shrugged and went back to his work, yawning into his hand as he flipped a page.

Calvin tried to catch the bite marks again, to make sure he wasn't imagining them.

There. Right near the artery. Two puncture wounds that couldn't be mistaken for anything else, other than vampire bites. Calvin clenched his hands into fists under the table.

"What do you do during the nights, then? You obviously don't get much sleep," he pressed.

Harry looked like he was trying to think, shaking his head after a while. "I don't … I usually just doze off. I don't remember, much."

Calvin couldn't pinpoint the reason for his contempt, but he suddenly couldn't focus on his research anymore. Potter has been sleepless these past few days, and it was probably because of that vampire professor. Calvin knew the creatures could enthrall their potential hosts with vampire magic, and he couldn't look past the professor trying to ensnare Potter during unsuspecting nights. Potter seemed gullible and susceptible enough.

And he could distinctly remember one late night study session when Potter had gone out, seemingly out of his wits, talking about searching the halls for something or other.

Calvin cracked it. Of course. But what could the vampire's motive be? Calvin had a sudden, deep urge to find out what it was, even if it cost him. It could be that he was using Potter for feeding, but having something this frequent in occurrence—it could be something else. Vampires don't feed every day. The only way he could was if he asked around, and also stood sentry over the common room at nights, watching out for when Potter made his nightly trips out of the Horologium dorms. Quite suddenly, Calvin smirked self-satisfyingly. He would get to the bottom of things.

* * *

Harry felt edgy as always whenever Halloween came. It always made him feel scared. He didn't understand it before his entrance to the magical world, but it dawned on him that day, knowing what he was told by his ghostly grandfather. He always felt encased in some stale, cold room because it was to be the night his parents died. It was an imprint, it seemed, on him. He didn't know how it happened that Halloween, and it was likely he never would, but he understood now.

Ombra, to his surprise, was festive when it came to Halloween. Harry never thought that the harshly academic atmosphere in the castle could turn so jovial and carefree. Professors distributed candy along the halls, the higher students played ghostly pranks, and the first years were having a nice day off from the barrage of schoolwork. Oddly enough, Harry experienced even less of a hard time with the other students. Some of them even waved, or smiled at his direction.

Marie chose this time to be in the libraries, mumbling an excuse about looking for some tome on Runes. Sienna was out sick of some fever, but without any privilege points, she was trying to break through it using her own brand of little cures. Harry couldn't say sorry to her enough, but she just brushed it off, looking at him with a surge of emotion and scurrying off to bed.

He and Antonio were playing Exploding Snap on the common room's carpeted floor, with Calvin reading some book near the fire. The air was chilly as always, and Harry and Antonio were bundled up in blankets.

Harry laughed as a wrong card flared to bits and blew up on Antonio's face, yet despite the distraction, he felt eyes on him, like the cold feel of steel against skin. He knew Calvin had his eyes set on him, but he didn't know why. He didn't say anything about it as usual, choosing to focus on playing the right cards. Antonio was pouting by then, cursing at Harry for his luck, and Harry passed it off as karma making amends for the day.

Antonio's face surged with sympathy, and Harry smiled to reassure the boy that he was alright. Antonio didn't press the matter, and they resumed their game.

A spell with the purpose of alerting the occupants that someone was outside the common room lit the room and chimed. The boys on the floor wondered who it was, and made towards the archway to open the path with their magic.

The runes around the arch glowed with their magical signatures and shifted the stones until the path was open. Willas stood in the archway, scuffing his boots on the stone floor and looking bored.

"Hello, Harry, Tony," he said, blinking. Harry had not seen him for weeks, and a smile lit his face up immediately.

"Willas!" he exclaimed. "How are you? You should come in. It's really cold out there."

Antonio eyed him suspiciously, and Willas merely glanced at him to roll his eyes.

"I'd rather not. That Balsagoth kid's going to be glaring a hole through me again," he said, loud enough for Calvin to hear. "I'm actually here to offer you an invitation, since a day without classes is usually dull for students in the higher years," he leaned against the archway and smirked. Harry didn't know what constituted a day of fun for the older students, yet curiosity got over his wariness.

"And what invitation is that?" Antonio asked. Willas noted how he sidled just so towards Harry.

"My journeymen want to meet you," Willas said to Harry, ignoring Antonio completely. "They've extended the invitation to Horologium, if your journeymen want to come." Willas seemed disinclined for anyone else other than Harry to come. He hid it well, but Harry felt it.

"We should go," Calvin said, appearing behind them so suddenly that they jumped at his voice. He was staring at Willas intently, and the taller boy stared back. It was almost a fight to see which one would falter first. In the end, Willas blinked and turned to Harry.

"So what do you say? From class Pegasus to Horologium?" he offered his hand, palm up, and looked at Harry expectantly.

"What's going on?" Harry inquired, as they entered one of the rooms in the castle Harry was too tentative to enter, because he had never seen any other first year mulling about in it. It was the Music Room, a little ways from Herbology Tower. More often than once, Harry had passed outside the room whenever he picked Sienna up from Herbology, and peeked inside to find students using musical instruments in the usual, rudimentary way, and some others utilizing them in casting spells.

They had come into what seemed to be an arena in full swing. It was still a room designed to amplify music and magic, but a large Rune circle had been drawn on the spacious ballroom floor, as wide as one of the flat expanses of earth in the training grounds. There were about twenty students inside, firing and dodging spells in a collective flurry of twists and dodges. Harry was astounded to note that any spell fizzed into non-existence the moment it passed through the circle's perimeter.

"Halloween is going on," Willas said, grinning. He was looking at the battle like they were, Harry with stunned awe, Antonio with a wicked glint of excitement in his eyes, and Calvin with cool regard. Harry saw one girl turn her wand into a flute, and play a tune that summoned a barrier about her. Most spells reflected off of it and fired in other directions.

"In a battle such as this, when only one person is the victor, a tactic like that is usually an effective one," Antonio remarked. He ooh'ed when one spell hit another girl and turned her limbs into useless octopus limbs.

Harry was focused on a duelling pair—two students whom Harry was sure were on opposing sides of the magical spectrum. The boy, who had long, slender hair tied back and a roguish expression on his face, was quite obviously Dark, by the way he hurled curses at his opponent carelessly and without a moment's pause. Harry didn't know most of the spells, but he knew they were dangerous—one reflected off the flute-playing girl's barrier and another burnt through it like acid.

The other caster was a Light witch—she was on the defensive, and Harry was amazed with her arsenal of spells. Three hexes fell in line and fired towards her, and with a flick of her wand, barriers erected themselves. Only one was stopped, and the girl had no choice but to use a conjured tower shield to bounce one off and to roll away from the third. She was smiling, however, incanting a series of spells that left her shelled with Merlin knows how many shields—Harry couldn't even see her with the stacked translucency of the magic.

The boy hammered through the wards. A conjured piece of rock, a Reductor curse, an acid hex, a _Bombarda, _then another Reductor curse—and spells fired continuously.

"That's … impressive," Calvin muttered next to Harry. "He knows which shield follows the next and destroys it accordingly."

"How is he doing that?" Antonio said in unrestrained giddiness. They all jumped when a sound hex exploded near them, bringing most of the students inside the Rune circle down to their knees.

"He's extrasensory," Willas said, as if that explained everything. "He's using his aura to sense the magic. But really? He's reading her. They've known each other for years."

When the last of the shields were down, they saw the boy curse—not cast a spell, but rather let out a number of offensive words from his mouth. The Light witch had drawn a Rune circle of her own, surrounding her. Behind her, a spell came from another student, only to crackle in mid-air and vanish into tiny wisps.

"Ah, her glyph inscribing at work," Willas chimed.

"What does it do?" Calvin asked, curiosity getting over his better judgment of not making conversation with the older student.

"It's an Isolation glyph—that is, a glyph inscribable only when inside another Rune circle. It copies the effects of the larger circle, creating a void inside the smaller glyph where the larger glyph has no effect," Willas answered him.

Five different spells hurl towards her, stopping at the edge of her glyph and vanishing.

"So spells cast in its direction fizzle out, like how spells directed outside the circle do," Antonio sighed in amazement. "That's _brilliant."_

"And difficult to do," Willas said. "Her shields could have died way before she finished the Rune links. Mind you, she writes fast, but one single mistake in her Runes could have made the effort fruitless."

"So she isn't a sitting duck," Calvin commented disdainfully. "She still can't do anything in there."

As if to prove him wrong, the girl turned her wand in her fingers. It shone and divided into two parts, and when she was holding a wand before, now she had an ordinary-looking violin resting between her chin and collarbone, her wand arm holding the bow.

She played, and her magic glided with the music that followed. The tune sounded ordinary to Harry, as far as music coming from string instruments were concerned, but her notes wove the music and transformed it into a different language, one where it can shift and change magic as specifically as a string of Latin words can.

Students still in the game groaned in a momentary bout of defeat before being transformed into ordinary household items. The boy landed on the floor as a toothbrush. Calvin visibly glowered at her victory, and Antonio chuckled in his expense, and at the brilliance of the Light witch's spell. They watched as the Rune circle died and sank into the ground, disappearing back into the castle's innate flow of magic.

"Brilliant as usual, Rebecca," Willas said, leaving the three Horologium students for a bit and clasping hands with the grinning witch. Harry saw the quick and easy way they exchanged touches, and decided that they must be friends.

"I was hoping that I'll turn them into zoo animals, but the magic runs a life of its own when played a Nocturne," she said offhandedly, transferring her gaze from Willas to the rest of them. Her eyes settled on Harry, and he took note of how she had two different-colored irises.

"Is this him?" she asked Willas, glancing at the taller boy for confirmation, though by the looks of it she didn't expect an answer as she walked towards Harry. "I imagined him taller. Like his friend over here."

Harry flushed red at the usual remark on his height, but stayed silent.

She gave Antonio an appraising look, and smiled at him. "You're Tony, I presume. Gerardo's brother."

Antonio nodded, shell-shocked at being addressed. She—Rebecca, her name was—then turned to Calvin. "And Calvin Balsagoth. You were in the meeting a few days ago."

Calvin considered her for a moment before nodding. She was powerful, Calvin thought begrudgingly. _If anything, I can't antagonize her in any way. _Her gaze was carrying, as if she was judging their very souls. When she lifted them, however, a beautiful smile graced her lips again and she swept her long hair aside. He noted the raised eyebrows of his journeymen at the mention of a meeting, but didn't look at them.

"_From Pegasi of Aquarius to Horologi of Taurus, we grace your House as we hope you grace ours—with intentions of no ill will or malice, with equal and shared desire for prosperity and longevity," _she announced, tapping her violin bow under her arm.

The boys, at a loss for words, stared at her, but Antonio who knew better about ancient rituals stepped forward, pointing his wand at the side of his own torso.

"_The clock shall chime for the winged horse, in time to the beat of the World, in hopes of warm wingbeats. Should your air turn icy chill, our earth shall take its price," _Antonio finished. Harry looked around him as a veil of unusual magic wrapped itself around them. Antonio's wand tip and Rebecca's bowtip shimmered with light, before shooting twin balls of magic through their skins. The magic settled itself and dissipated, and Harry was once again aware of the wide room. Harry didn't know how it happened, but it seemed that for the exchange of words, everything else had dimmed into the background.

"It's a truce ritual," Antonio said, prompted by their inquiring gazes. "Should one class harm another, both participants of the ritual would bear consequences. Probably something to do with destroying your lymph nodes."

Harry grimaced. He didn't know the exact purpose of lymph nodes, but he knew somehow that the body needed them. "You make it sound like a bug bite."

"The ritual's purpose isn't to cause pain, so I doubt it would feel like anything more than a bug bite—though of course, your lymphatic system will be shut down, and you'll be incapacitated," a comment came from behind them, and they all turned to see that it was the long-haired boy from before, his hair in slight disarray.

"Time-delayed magic," Rebecca said. "Very smart."

"You whip out your violin and I know we're buggered," he said coolly, regarding each of the first years in front of him. By the way he brushed Rebecca's one-up against him told them that he wasn't bothered by it.

"So you cast a counter-spell to activate after a few seconds," Willas explained, more for the sake of the first years who were exchanging confused glances.

"If I knew the glyph wasn't soundproof, I would've done something," the boy insisted.

"You _knew _you were going to get turned into a toothbrush?" Harry said, blushing when the boy's gaze swept over him.

"No," he said flatly, "but I knew I was going to be turned into _something. _That knowledge was enough for me." He cocked his head to the side and fixed Harry with a cold stare, and the boy in turn felt as if frozen spiders were crawling on his skin.

"Alan, you're scaring him," Willas pointed out, in a not-so-warm tone that forced said boy out of the gaze he had fallen into. Willas clasped Harry's shoulder with his hand, and he felt the boy relax under it.

"My apologies," he said, and Harry was surprised to hear him sound so suddenly earnest. "You're abuzz with magical power. It's odd, I see it rippling around you in waves, but it's entirely disconnected from your core—as if you don't really own it, but it's there nonetheless."

Rebecca turned to Harry and raised an elegant eyebrow. "Can you wield it?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head and ducking under their collective gazes, thinking about how Alan could see his magic. Harry could do the same—though he wouldn't classify it as seeing, really, since it was extrasensory.

"I bet he could," Antonio yipped, and Harry ducked under their collective gazes.

"It's very eerie—see there, that one fringe is reaching out somewhere, though I don't know where …" Alan said, trailing of and looking at a spot in the air. Harry tried to stare at that same spot, but couldn't find anything.

"So the others are still objects," Harry said, glancing dubiously at a potted plant that was once a girl.

Alan breathed out a few whispers and a glowing yellow circle, hovering over his head, appeared.

"It knows what to do," Alan breathed, looking worn out. "But my reserves are depleted. If anyone would just run magic through it."

As if on cue, everyone turned to Harry, who took a step back.

"Go on, then," Willas said, smiling. "Try and filter it through that circle thing."

"I-I don't know how," Harry replied, glancing at Alan. Calvin scoffed beside him.

"Just—look, Potter. Just feel it out. Concentrate. It should feel like pressing some weird, separate limb through that ring," Calvin said. He closed his eyes, and at first Harry didn't know what was happening, and then it became visible.

Calvin's magic. It was very faint, but it was there, floating, and a few wisps of it rolled in the air and made its way towards the ring. The instant it went through, the circle went alight with energy, and fired a wave of magic towards a random direction. It hit a bicycle wheel, and it turned back into a boy in an instant.

"About time!" the boy yelled, rubbing his bum.

"That was good," Rebecca said, and Calvin's face twisted in a smug expression.

"Just like that?" Antonio asked, intrigued. "It's like a template or something."

Harry had never encountered such magic. Nevertheless, he focused, and tried to feel out his magic twisting about. He had his eyes closed for a while, trying to pinpoint where everything was, making a grab for them in his mind and jamming them into the tight ring. Music began playing. He didn't know where, it just did, as he fed his magic around him into a funnel.

When he opened his eyes, everyone was looking at him with various expressions. Everyone, even the students who were random objects just seconds before.

"Amazing," Antonio breathed.

"What?" Harry said, confused. "What did I do?"

"I second that," Willas said, grinning, and Rebecca beside him nodded. "Your magic was visible—it just all flowed into Alan's ring and, well, it sent off wave after wave of the reversing magic." He then turned to Alan, who was quite in awe himself. "The spell was—"

"Music-based," Alan said, nodding. He was staring at Harry with an unreadable expression, and Harry's skin was crawling with it.

"I think that's just about enough of a demonstration from Harry here," Willas said, knocking everyone out of their fixation on the boy. Harry was surprised when everyone just went about their business, cursing and talking about the recent duel.

"What happened? Why did everyone just look away?" Antonio asked. Willas brandished his wand.

"Notice-Me-Not," he said, smiling. "It might save your hides one day, when you're off to an actual battle," he said, suddenly clamping his mouth shut when Rebecca openly glared at him.

"I think I now know the reason for this visit," Alan said, looking at the three first years, and then glancing at Willas with a deep gaze. "You're planning on telling them, Willas?"

At those words, Rebecca's expression changed from upset to murderous, and with a swift hand he hit the back of Willas' head.

"Ouch! That was uncalled for!" he cried, putting his hands up in a pitiful show of defense.

"Telling them, Willas! First years who have no business!" Rebecca whispered sharply, as if the Notice-Me-Not wasn't there. "Our master will skin you for Potions ingredients!"

"Well then, I'm glad he doesn't know I'm going to do it," he said, placating. "And besides, I'd be the most useless ingredient to him."

"He'll probably use you to experiment, then," Alan said seriously, and then turned to the first years, who were properly confused as to what was happening. Calvin looked suspicious, and Antonio and Harry looked doe-eyed.

After a short while where Alan and Willas stared at each other, he said, "So tonight. We tell them everything."

Willas nodded. Alan took out his wand and swished it once around them, enveloping them in a silencing charm.

"I think, since you're most likely going to be a central figure in this war, that we should tell you," Alan started. He breathed, and then came out with it all at once.

"Whatever false security you've fallen into because of this cold war, snap out of it. Everyone's at a standstill because their waiting for the professors. Students follow so closely behind their advisers' footsteps sometimes, that it won't be surprising if they did whatever their advisers did. The professors are duty bound never to harm a student, but the students, aren't. The professors hold such a high amount of power and influence that, when it happens, it will spell chaos for the students. There will be a war, Potter, a small one it may be as of now. But it will blow up."

"What are you talking about?" Calvin demanded. It was a question that Harry had wanted to ask but was too paralyzed with Alan's words to say.

"One of us in Pegasus, she's a Seer," said Rebecca, with a hint of trepidation. "Like all Seers, she sees only glimpses, but this one stood out. She told our Adviser of what we saw, and he came out with it. Laverne's exposing the school to the public. She's going to destroy a pillar of the school. The Pillar of Secrecy. That pillar keeps certain magical restrictions in this school. And if it's destroyed … it would just be like a regular magical school. Don't you think it's odd, how children from strictly opposing families aren't allowed to kill each other? It's because of that magic. Without it …"

"What does that imply?" Calvin said without missing a beat.

"It means, kids," Willas said darkly. "That the professors will be forced to Declare. And that will determine what kind of school this would be to the public eye. Everyone who's been using this school to hide will be exposed, and will react. Dark Lord sympathizers. Elitists. Magical creatures with treaties. Everyone would either be for Harry, or after his head."


End file.
